


The Care and Keeping of an Apprentice

by frangipani



Series: Boundaries [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Slow Burn, F/M, Force Woo, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Jedi Orders, Recovery, Training Bond, Training Expedition, Trauma, all my shipper feels, every single mara feel i have, force camp, luke skywalker treads softly, mara is my woobie, speeder bikes, the training of mara jade, totally chaste except when it’s not, tropetastic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:17:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 66,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/pseuds/frangipani
Summary: In all her life, she had never felt more certain of herself than when she was saying no, especially to herself.Or A week with the Order of the Zeison Sha teaches Mara about the Force, apprenticeship, and care.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Conspicuous in its absence is the femdom tag. We’re scaling back on the sexy times although you'll have to pry power dynamics from my cold dead hands. In the interest of full disclosure, this fic will not end in smut. Next one though. Next one.
> 
> *Part of the Boundaries series, which means a standalone, self contained fic, but one that follows/references the previous fic in the series.
> 
> **Background: after about a year of training under Luke, Mara decides to leave Coruscant. Luke goes with her to finish her training. This expedition happens roughly two months into their time at the _Wild Karrde_.

_It is a truism of the Jedi Order that a Jedi Knight’s education truly begins when he becomes a Master:_  
_...everything important about being a Master is learned from one’s student._  
-Matthew Woodring Stover, Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

  
  
  


Mara kicked off her shoes’ elevated heels and dashed out of the tapcafe and onto the observation deck of one of Axxila’s numerous spacescrapers, blaster bolts whizzing past her. For the millionth time she damned the impractical dress Karrde had her wear and her inability to carry a lightsaber.

Getaway is the primary goal, he’d said. 

Her alarm sense tingled and she ducked into a roll, spinning back to return fire. She caught the thug square in the chest. Two more were coming out, she wouldn’t get too far, but she sensed Luke was near enough. A deep breath, and she whirled to face them, hand firm on her blaster. She pulled the trigger and the thugs scattered. Drawing on the training bond, Mara let herself fall back over the edge of the skyscraper, a sense of -- 

_don’t miss me_

Two bolts hurtled past her as she fell. Mara got a couple of shots over the sink of her stomach, the rush of wind. A bolt passed so close she felt its heat near her cheek. She kept falling until it didn’t feel like falling, until she floated. For a second her mind stuttered an _oh no too far down_ ; she was reaching terminal velocity. But there was a brief wrench like the yank of crash webbing, hard enough to bruise, then it gave and she was pulled _down_ purposefully. 

The impact with the seat of the speeder bike still knocked the wind out of her and the blaster from her hands, but the Force hold kept her in place, steady enough that she didn’t need to grab the tail of the bike. An inquiry blossomed from the training bond as the adrenaline had her scrambling for the restraints, strapping herself in, her back against Luke’s, heels digging into the sides of the bike. She only thought, fevered, _go, go, go_! 

The hold released. The bike accelerated.

Mara reached into the side compartment, not taking her eyes off the skylane until she saw it.

Airspeeder. She only needed to get it sufficiently off course for them to get away. Her hands quickly worked over the blaster rifle, much heavier than the holdout she lost, and capable of taking out one of the speeder's grav thrusters. She secured the gas canister until it clipped. The airspeeder pursuing them cut off the one in front. Maybe two airspeeders before the thugs would get a clean shot at them.

Mara jammed in the power charger, dialing it up to maximum power. Set her aim. 

She felt Luke stiffen behind her as he caught what she was about to do. Speeder bikes weren’t the most stable of rides ordinarily, and this one wasn’t even a military model. The pursuing airspeeder passed the first of two. With the kind of firepower she was packing...It was a good thing they had the Force. She gripped high on the rifle aligning its barrel with her arm as much as she could against the frenetic zoom of the bike, called on the Force to support her arm. 

She checked her aim. Even with that, she wasn’t sure how many shots she’d manage. Checked her aim again. Better make them count.

Their pursuers passed the first airspeeder. She exhaled, stretching with the Force, and squeezed the trigger. The blaster fired, kicked, slamming her back against Luke’s back. The speeder bike shifted off course into the next lane, dipping a hair’s breath from slamming into a building before she felt Luke wrench it back. They pulled up as another airspeeder zoomed by them in the opposite the direction, horns blaring.

Mara checked -- it hit, the airspeeder descended momentarily, but not enough. It wasn't a direct hit. There was snap and a shower of blaster bolts was making its way towards them.

The bike dipped, wove through the bolts, one of them grazed the bike a foot from her ankle. That would send them flying into the nearest building, if it weren’t for Luke’s hold on it. She aimed carefully, again calling the Force to her. Could she squeeze another shot? 

She could. 

Mara waited for the shot, mindless of the wind whipping through the loose tendrils of her hair from where it escaped the formal updo, the flap of her skirt, the screech of the other vehicles. She aimed, breathed. The shot revealed itself.

She took it.

Again, the recoil slammed her back and the bike veered to the side. The airspeeder was off course now and descending quickly -- almost falling -- but so was the bike. It dipped down sharply, taking her stomach with it, passing so close to a skyway Mara could reach up and touch it without fully extending her arm. Mara undid and stowed away the rifle once she could and leaned forward, both hands on the tail as the bike accelerated. She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, exhaling, for the first time feeling the wind at her face as they left the city center behind. 

The skylanes were clear by the time they made it to the private docking bay in the middle point of one of the skyscrapers. Luke input the code and the wide hangar doors slid open. Mara checked her chrono, pulse still jackhammering. Adrenaline had her senses heightened, she thought she could still smell ozone.

“Karrde should be here in thirty minutes,” she managed to say once he’d turned the engine off. Her voice sounded strange to her ears. She unstrapped herself and slid to sit on the side. “I don’t think he’ll have many on his tail either.”

Luke had taken off the helmet and placed it in front of him. She felt the training bond unravel, gradually growing fainter until it winked out. She stretched towards him with the Force. There was a bit of the remaining tension from the firefight, but it was already dissipating.

Calming techniques, she thought, annoyed at herself. That’s what they’re for. Obviously.

She was about to get started when he ventured, “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Something as simple as adrenaline merited no acknowledgement, it always took some time to come down from it. 

“I haven’t driven one of these in a while,” he offered conversationally. 

Mara made a face. “They’re flimsy. Impractical.”

His voice turned nostalgic. “And terribly expensive.Girls loved them back home.”

“And I suppose that was as good reason as any for any Outer Rim scruff to want one.”

“Some of us actually had an adolescence, you know,” Luke poked good naturedly. “But point taken. I had T-16 myself.”

Mara pushed herself off the seat and towards the ground. “Adolescence? I’m told it’s all about embarrassment and irresponsibility. No big loss.”

His hand fell to her waist, tentative not grabbing just there, the most minute movement could make it fall away as if it had never been there. “Irresponsibility isn’t so bad.”

Mara turned around and arched an eyebrow. “Looking for trouble?”

He grinned at her wolfishly. “Always.”

It’d been a week since they’d resumed their arrangement and there’d just been one other time. It did feel like a challenge, and there was just enough adrenaline still coursing through her system for her to think she could raise the stakes a little. She hiked her skirt and turned back, pushing the helmet off and straddling the bike just in front of Luke. The helmet clunked to the ground, rolled several feet away. She went for the fastenings of his pants.

“Whoa --”

“Too much trouble? Wouldn’t want to put you off.” He hissed once her hand reached through his underwear and she smirked. “Doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem.” He gasped as her hand slid down along his length, stoking him to hardness. 

“It’s...not.” His voice sounded a little strangled. “Just…maybe a guy just needs a little romancing first.”

Mara chuckled, mostly at him distracted enough to take her remarks literally. She removed her hand to lick it, catching how his eyes widened. He drew air in a sharp breath as she brought it back into his pants. “Sure, you do.”

He summoned some indignance. “I do.”

“Like that line about working for me? Cute. How long did it take you to come up with that?” 

She thought it one of the most gratifying things to witness was Luke Skywalker struggling for coherency, breaths gone erratic, eyes heavy lidded, the muscles of his neck taut. 

“I do,” he finally managed to blurt, sounding pleasantly stupid to her ears. “I-I do work for you.” For a second she felt uneasy, but then he added. “ _Everyone_ works for you.”

“Got that right.” She shifted closer, nuzzled his neck and he moaned softly. She felt him clenching his fists at either side of him. “See, now,” she murmured, “that’s the kind of thing that could get a farmboy places.” She reached for his right hand and slid it under the slit of her skirt to her thigh -- the one without the holster.

His breathing caught when his hand came into contact with her bare skin.

Mara stopped her hand’s movements, eyes locking on his. In the dim light of the warehouse, she couldn’t make out the shade. A pity, she could imagine them barely blue, pupils flaring black. She fixed him with a stern look. “Keep it chaste.”

Luke blinked at her. His lip twitched as if he were holding back a smile. “My hand is up your dress. Yours is --”

Mara reached for the hand on her thigh and brought it down between her legs to the shimmerlace of her underwear.

He sucked in a breath. 

“That’s not chaste.” She moved the hand back to her thigh. “This is. Questions?”

He swallowed. “Can I...”

She smiled, letting herself revel in the trailing pause, heavy and perfect. “No.”

He let out a breath. “I really want to. Last time --” Luke broke off with a sharp intake of breath when she began stroking him again.

The lull only lasted for a few seconds, then he splayed his palm and slid it up, folded it over her inner thigh. The caress made her gasp and stop her movement. She made a sound of disapproval.

“Still...chaste,” Luke breathed out, dragging his hand down her inner thigh. She thought she could feel every single one of the calluses of his fingers. She wondered if she could catalogue them, one at the pad of his thumb, one at his index finger...he slid the fingers up, just skirting the crease of her thigh, the fringe of her underwear. “You sure...it’s a no?”

Mara inhaled, reached for composure over the tantalizing pattern he was tracing on her skin. There was no way he could miss the flutter of muscles of her thigh. She rested her forehead against his shoulder for a moment, brought her other hand to it, turned her head to press her lips behind his ear. He sighed, soft and shivery, and she went back to stroking him. He exhaled and the corner of his lip beckoned irresistibly.

He froze at the first contact, but for the briefest instant, surprised. In the space of a heartbeat, right before her regret could set in, his free hand covered hers between his legs, stilling it. He turned his head so her lips settled on his -- more a caress than a kiss, and he leaned further, adding slight pressure. The hand holding hers let go, reached to her face, thumb stroking against her jaw.

Mara shivered, the remnants of the adrenaline possibly, but this was conceivably the opposite she would do if that were the case. She couldn’t keep herself from brushing her tongue lightly against his lower lip. He drew her lower lip between his -- and they were kissing in earnest. She felt as if she lay in suspension, a vague echo of _oh no too far down_ , but maybe it was everything else that stopped while the wave of want built.

The accompanying shift of her hips brought the hand on her thigh right between her legs and she moaned. What it meant settled a few instants later when she realized that while Luke might still be kissing her, he hadn’t moved his hand, not to bring it back to her thigh, not to bring it more fully against her. Had it been an accident? She wanted...she broke the kiss, breathing heavily, suddenly feeling back to a mishmash of pieces. He was looking at her and she turned her face away. His hand was still under her chin, the pad of his thumb rubbing against her cheek.

“Okay?” he whispered, nuzzling along her temple. He tentatively pressed his lips there, cautious. His lips descended to just off her cheekbone, lower still to her cheek, then to the side of her lip. She turned her head and the firm pressure of his lips was back on hers. He deepened the kiss, less cautious than before, but aware. The kiss was no less immersive for it, too fast she felt she was losing track of the seconds, minutes, hyperaware of his hand unmoving between her legs, just _there_ , and she was blazing with want, hips hitching involuntarily. An instinctual response to the pulse between her legs, she thought. She didn’t have to roll her hips again. She didn’t. But she did. Again. And again.

Mara pulled away from the kiss, dragging in air, she was not sure, maybe he moved his hand closer, maybe he didn’t, maybe it was that she was burning white-hot and even the slightest brush against his hand sent flashes of sensation with every roll of her hips. She shut her eyes tight. It was stupid to work herself up this way. So stupid.

Luke was dropping light kisses down the side of her neck. There was an impatient whine building in her throat, his hand was just the slightest bit of resistance, the barest graze. She was not meant to find her release this way. She could just ask. It was normal to ask. He would give it to her if she asked. 

She’d never ask.

Mara realized, amid near sobbing breaths, she was so close. She wanted that ease of tension, wanted it rippling up her back, if only for a second. But it was alright, it was fine if she didn’t. She didn’t need it. She didn’t need anything at all. 

Luke kissed his way up again, past her neck, across her jaw, drew away to bring the pad of his thumb to stroke over her lower lip. He shouldn’t touch her like that, she thought, dazed and aching. It was too risky.

She drew another breath, closed her eyes, soon, maybe--

Sudden noise from the other side of the warehouse broke through her haze. Mara blinked it away, shoved the ache between her legs into the edge of her awareness as she shifted back and slid off the bike. She focused on fixing her clothes, grounding herself, vaguely registering that Luke was biting off a particularly vicious curse -- he hadn’t known that specific turn of phrase before he met her, she was sure of it. She would have smiled, but she was still feeling muzzy-headed. Shaking herself, she was about to go meet Karrde when Luke’s hand whipped out to clasp her arm.

His brows drew together worriedly. “Are you alright? Mara?”

Mara nodded, but the concern didn’t vanish. “Are we alright?” he asked tentatively.

She brought a hand to his cheek and saw his worry ease. “Yeah.” She walked on ahead.

“Any issues?” Karrde asked when they approached, Dankin in step beside him. 

“None,” Mara replied, head firmly back in the game. She’d mull over everything later, for now just a bit of distance was enough. “You were right. They only had one set of guards outside.”

Karrde smiled. “Well, it’s not every day that a thief jumps off the tallest high-rise in the city. I expect those guards were intending to go scrape you off the ground and get the goods back. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight.”

“How’d you like the 81-ZA?” Dankin asked Luke.

“Handles okay for non-military,” Luke replied. “But still the kind of ride just as likely to get you in trouble as get you out of it. Especially in the city.”

“Thought that was the appeal.” Mara fished out a small pouch from the corset of her dress.

“It’s all fun and games until you slam into a tree,” Luke pointed out mildly. “Or a spacescraper.”

Mara snorted and handed the pouch to Karrde. “The Figg Conglomerate will be happy to have these back.”

Dankin grunted. “Did it for the insult it would be to the Hutts if you ask me. Steal from me. I steal from you.”

“For whatever reason,” Karrde said dismissively, taking the pouch and beginning to walk over to a waiting shuttle, its landing ramp already extended. “We’re not getting paid to speculate. Let’s get back to the ship before they have the whole planet looking for us.” 

Dankin went in the cockpit, while the rest of them filed into the passenger hold as he went through the preflight checklist and the repulsorlifts began to whirr.

“This gets us ahead by quite a bit.” Karrde looked at the pouch once he had sat. 

“What was it?” Luke asked, strapping in.

Karrde opened it up and poured a small glittering object out into his hand.

Luke’s eyes widened. “A rainbow gem.” He looked over at Mara, who had just finished clipping on her crash webbing. “That’s what we were getting back?”

Karrde nodded. “We made no promises to Figg Corp. But this will put us in good standing. Given that, I suppose that we can make do without both of you for the week, if that is still something that interests you.”

“It is.” Luke glanced over at Mara. “You’re still okay with it?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“It's settled, then.” Karrde shook his head at him. “Although why anyone would want to go to Yanibar of all places to train is beyond me.” 

\--

The next day Mara was taking in the yellow grasses in the arid landscape that surrounded Yanibar’s spaceport. The smell of fuel and oil clung to the hot air and seemed to fix itself to Mara’s tunic the second she walked out of the skipray. Karrde had been right in his appraisal of the planet. She looked over at Luke.

“Remind you of home?” She wrinkled her nose.

“A little.” He flashed her a lopsided smile. “I can’t believe Karrde’s letting you go for the week.”

“I can." Mara grinned. "We got an obscene amount of credits and more than that, a happy contact. I’m sure he’s already coming up with ways he can use Figg Corp. It’s a fair trade.”

“I see why his people like working for him.” He shared her smile and looked as if he were about to say more, but changed the subject. “The Sha Kalan temple should be past the city a couple of hours away. I’ll have to ask to be sure.”

Luke had floated the idea of contacting the Zeison Sha shortly before their arrival to this part of the Outer Rim. The Order had been mentioned in some data chips he’d gotten from some Jedi training ship whose name Mara never remembered. Originally Jedi refugees of some ancient war, the group that would become the Zeison Sha been left stranded for decades on Yanibar after the wars ended. When the Old Republic Jedi returned to bring them back into the fold, the damage had already been done. The Zeison Sha refused to have anything to do with them. 

To Mara, this was a sure sign the Zeison Sha were better left alone, but Luke in his endless curiosity for all things Force-related couldn’t resist the opportunity for a closer look now that the _Wild Karrde_ was in the system. They might have some knowledge to share that he hadn’t come across, went his logic, and he couldn’t pass up the chance of talking to a living breathing being with Force mastery, even if their philosophy should differ somewhat. The files had said the Zeison Sha were particularly skilled at telekinesis. If they proved receptive, Luke was hoping they'd let them train with them for the week.

Mara thought that was a big _if_. “You really think you’ll get anything from them? The Zeison Sha don’t seem like the biggest fans of Jedi.”

“Well, I’m not expecting a welcome mat. The Jedi didn’t do right by them, but it has been centuries since then.”

“Don’t underestimate how long someone can hold a grudge.” 

“Estrangement between Orders doesn’t do them or us any good. If this opens the lines of communication, then it’s worth it. They have a lot we could learn.”

“What if they don’t buy it and throw us out?”

Luke shrugged. “That might happen. Nothing ventured…”

“What if they want your head to go along with the sympathy?”

He smiled. “Then I’m doubly glad I brought you along. It’ll be a bigger challenge than the riffraff that’s come at you these days.”

Mara rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t believe you dragged me into this.”

He wagged a finger at her. “Training is more than just swatting at blaster bolts with a lightsaber.”

“Keep talking like that and I’ll swat _you_.” Mara cringed inwardly the second the words were out of her mouth, but he chuckled, not reading anything into it. They were in training mode, after all. She was beginning to wonder if the whole blushing thing back in Coruscant hadn’t been a carefully calculated act.

Disturbing.

“This better be worth it,” she muttered at his back as he went over to the speeder rentals.

\--

The Sha Kalan temple, they had found out, was in a large temple complex enclosed by a mudbrick enclosure wall, settlements at either side of it. They aligned the speeders along its walls. Through the gateway, Mara thought she saw a courtyard leading to a central building that loomed large in the distance. 

Mara dismounted, pushed up her goggles, pulled down her head scarf, and took a swig of her water bottle. Luke came over to her squinting against the glare of the sun, his own goggles around his neck. The sun wouldn’t set until well into what they recognized as their night cycle. It would take some adjusting to if they were to end up staying for the week she’d persuaded Karrde to give them.

“What are you getting?” 

Mara recognized the question as a prompt, she knew by now Luke probably had cataloged the place inside out through the Force. It had not quite become a fixed habit for her just yet-- not through the Force, at least. It hadn’t been for a long time.

She sent her awareness out to her surroundings and concentrated on the building in the distance. “Maybe about twenty beings inside." She paused. "Thirteen are human, the rest non.” Something flagged in her Force sense. “--and they know we’re here.” She looked at Luke warily.

He nodded. “They’re expecting us. Come on.”

The inside of the temple provided some relief from the dry heat outside. The opening lead them to a long corridor. The make seemed to be stone and the ceiling was high with a small skylight where light filtered down at the end. Sunlight streamed down a red-skinned Twi’lek polishing some sculptures, washing over her dark blue robes.

She didn't look up until they were about two meters away although Mara knew she'd sensed them.

Luke smiled affably and gave her a small bow of his head. “Hello.”

Her face remained blank. “Identify yourselves offworlders and state your purpose.”

“I’m Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. This is my apprentice, Mara Jade. We’ve come to request an audience with Zeisan Sha’s Master Council.”

Mild surprise flitted across her face. “ _The_ Luke Skywalker? Last of the Jedi?”

“That’s not quite the way I think of it,” he said with a slight wince. “But sure.”

“Last of a dying breed,” the Twi’lek retortedsharply. “Well deserved.”

Mara was taken aback at the animosity. She’d expected the Zeison Sha to be standoffish, not all-out hostile from the get go.

Naturally, Luke was unruffled. He looked at the Twi’lek solemnly. “I can see why you would feel that way.”

She bristled. “Jedi, you see nothing.”

“What happened to your people happened long before I was born,” Luke replied carefully. “And nothing can fix it, but if the apology of the one remaining Jedi means anything, you have it.”

“And with that you hope, what? To learn our secrets?” Her mouth formed a snarl. “You insult us.” 

Mara’s alarm sense tingled just an instant before the Twi’ lek flung something. Mara’s lightsaber _snap-hissed_ on, and she would have swiped at the object, except it spun in a circle too fast to follow before heading straight at Luke. 

The object paused less than halfway towards him, freezing in midair.

Luke called it to him, examined it from where he had it hover a few inches above his hand. It was a disc about the size of his hand with jagged razor sharp protrusions. 

Mara looked over to the Twi’lek who was grunting, expending visible effort, undoubtedly to get the disc back. Her lekku writhed in apparent fury.

“This is a discblade, I suppose,” Luke ventured matter-of-factly. “The Zeison Sha’s weapon of choice. Have you seen one of these before, Mara?”

“Like it, yes. Not a discblade, per se,” she answered, not taking her eyes off the struggling Twi'lek.

“They’re resistant to lightsabers apparently,” he continued. “According to the files.”

Mara turned to him, eyebrows raising at that. “Really?” 

Luke tossed the discblade her way, mindless of the Twi’lek’s frustrated grunt as she was unable to recover her hold. Mara slashed at it, feeling her blade _bounce_ off.

“Huh.” Luke called it back again to just over his palm. “Interesting.”

“Are you done taunting my apprentice, Jedi Skywalker?” a gravely voice asked. The disc moved from Luke’s grasp.

Mara brought her lightsaber to guard position, but didn’t shift her eyes from the Twi’lek. The new presence all but exploded into her Force sense, sending warning bells through her mind. The last time... 

Luke would just have to handle it, but she couldn’t resist snapping, “He wasn’t taunting--”

“Talk when you’re talked to, apprentice. It seems like proper forms of respect have died with the Jedi,” the voice continued. The words were not sharp, but the pull of the Force underneath it was unmistakeable.

Mara glared, but stayed quiet.

“My apologies." Luke nodded towards the Twi'lek. He turned back to the Master, waiting for the Master to offer his name.

“You’ll get my name when you show yourself worthy of it. Tell your apprentice to put her weapon away.”

She felt a flicker of annoyance from Luke, but quickly as it came, it vanished. He nodded at Mara and she switched it off, turning to face the Master.

It was a grizzled human male, hunched, but without a cane. His skin was dark, leathery, no surprise given the inhospitable world outside.

He shook his head, eyes roving over Luke disapprovingly. 

“And how may I become worthy of your name?” 

The Master’s eyebrows lifted and he gestured to the Twi'lek. “Don’t state your purpose to my apprentice for one.” He shook his head. “Much less utter an apology, feh. That is not discourse between equals. You demonstrate contempt to her. That, in turn, insults me.”

Color went up Luke’s face. “I did not--”

The Master waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes, I perceive your deference and good will. But there are forms of respect and you would do well to learn them if you’re to be a figurehead to your Order. This is the first time you’ve sought congress with another Order, no?”

“I am acquainted with the Witches of Dathomir.”

The Master made a face like he'd bitten into something awful. "No wonder. Leya, to me.” The Twi’lek went towards him, glowering at them both as she passed.

“For the future, it would behoove you to keep in mind that an Order does not simply open its doors to just anyone. An Order will ask for your sincerity and respect _first_.”

Luke nodded slowly, cautiously. “And what would the Order of the Zeison Sha want me to do to show my sincerity and respect?”

The Master smiled. “That is the question to ask.”

He waited a few beats. All of it unnecessarily dramatic, but Mara supposed Orders needed to keep their mystique somehow. 

The Master shot Mara a sharp look before turning to Luke. “Ours is a hostile home, but it is home nonetheless and thriving despite its brutality is a matter of pride for the Zeison Sha. We welcome to spend the night in our home, under our stars. That, and the tusk of a voorcat will grant you an audience with our Council of Masters, Jedi. Will you accept our invitation?”

That didn’t sound much like an invitation to Mara. She couldn’t resist arching an eyebrow at Luke who sent her a disapproving nudge through the Force.

“We accept.”

The Master sighed again, as if he were dealing with a child. “No, Jedi Skywalker. _You_ accept. Your apprentice follows.”

Again she felt a twitch of annoyance, just before Luke shuffled it away. He nodded. “I accept.”

The Master nodded. “You will leave all your belongings here, save your weapons. Leya will show you the way out of the temple grounds. Go with the Force.”

\--

“Not so bad,” Luke offered looking off to the hills in the distance. “Right?”

Mara looked around at their increasingly desolate surroundings and snorted. It was not a desert, but close enough as far as she was concerned. “This was not one of your better ideas, Skywalker,” she summed up.

“Have you done much animal tracking?”

“I did some work at a safari ages ago, but that doesn’t count. I wasn’t directly involved with the actual animals and it was a controlled environment. You?”

He gave her a curious look, she supposed her stint at Varonat had never come up. The matter at hand was more pressing though, and he went on, “Sometimes we had to get bocatts before they damaged the vaporators. But I did that only once or twice, usually a hunter was hired to do most of the work.”

She racked her brain for the files she’d read on Yanibar’s flora and fauna. “Voorcats are the largest predator here and we are heading towards a body of water. We won’t have to track them. They’ll come to us. They travel in packs so the issue might be picking which one to get the tusk from.”

“That is, presuming we don’t get mauled and die bloody first.” He gave her a cheery smile and went on ahead. She shook her head at him. He was spending way too much time with her.

It took them about four hours to complete the hike. The body of water turned out to be a small stream. Mara had set a technique to prevent dehydration, but the lag in the hours was wearing on her concentration. It felt like midnight to her internal chrono, but the sun was still bright overhead.

She’d done a million expeditions like this. More complicated ones. Just never without any supplies.

She splashed water on her face. Surely, now that she had water and rest she could release the technique…

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked from where he sat against one of the spindly trees that lined the stream.

Mara grimaced. “My internal chrono.” She rubbed at the back of her neck. “It’s not settling and it’s affecting my concentration.”

He thought for a moment. “I knew there was a reason I kept pushing you towards meditation.”

“You want me to meditate? Now?”

“There’s no chance of you sleeping with the sun like this. That’s the next best thing. I’ll keep a lookout. See if that helps realign you.” 

She rubbed her forehead and sat back under another one of those spindly trees. She turned her neck to the side, cracking it. Stretched her back. Folded her legs and her hands to concentrate on her breathing, shunting the heat and the sweat at her temples, the beginning of hunger, the ache in her muscles…sinking into nothingness...

She felt herself pulled back into awareness. There was a prickle of warning, and Luke’s voice low by her ear, his arm tight across her back, a firm grip on her shoulder. For a split second, she was disoriented, her mind tripping over his nearness, calling up all sorts of memories for the briefest instant before he spoke.

“Voorcats. Don’t move.”

Mara was back in the moment, doing a run down on her state. The meditation seemed to do the trick, she felt the Force at hand and she used it to get a lock on the various discomforts, not least of which was the hunger which had settled into her stomach. Luke’s arm slid away.

There were about thirty of them at the stream before them. Voorcats were roughly as long as a human, but all sinewy muscle, with tusks that extended out for more than five inches even when their mouths were closed. Rushing at them with a lightsaber seemed like a way to put off a very unpleasant demise given their numbers. She turned her head towards Luke, stretching out for an inkling of a plan, but only got wariness. He wasn’t shielding, these were just the limits of what she perceived. Mara threaded the training bond, Luke bringing up his side automatically.

She sensed clearly he didn’t like the numbers. The best thing to do would be to isolate one, but how --

Luke marshalled the Force to him and extended it towards the animals’ presences. One animal specifically, but Mara couldn’t see precisely what he was doing. She intuited the reason was that it was something too precise for her skill level. At any rate, a voorcat at the edge of the pride perked up and began a lazy wander out, gradually leaving the pack behind. It ambled over a hill, just out of sight.

“We don’t have to kill it,” Luke whispered. 

Mara flashed him an incredulous look. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s just going to say, ‘here, take my tusk’, and stand still.”

He threw her a pointed look and she lifted her shoulders. It was true.

They stealthily followed the path the voorcat had taken. Once they found it -- looking for all intents and purposes lost in the clearing past the hill, she sensed Luke stretching out to it again. The voorcat suddenly sprawled itself on the ground and closed its eyes, as if exhausted.

Her eyebrows lifted. “You made it fall asleep?” 

“I think so.”

“You _think_ so?” But Luke was already inching forward to where the beast lay.

With a sigh, Mara approached cautiously behind him, lightsaber in hand. Then something occurred to her and she grabbed Luke’s wrist. “Wait a second. Let me do it.”

He turned to her. “What? Why?”

“I have more experience with detailed blade work,” she whispered, igniting her blade. “Trust me.”

“What doe--”

“If it gets a lightsaber anywhere not the tusk, it’s going to wake up angry no? My hand won’t slip. I guarantee it. You’re sure it’s asleep?” she couldn’t resist asking.

Luke nodded.

Mara crept forward past him to the prone voorcat. Taking a stabilizing breath, she lifted her blade, measuring the distance. Another breath and she swiped carefully. Three inches of tusk fell to the ground. Mara turned off the lightsaber and crouched to pick the tusk up. 

She was whirling with it in hand when her danger sense tingled and she spun back, snapping on the blade to catch a voorcat mid-jump, intending to pounce on her. Two were not far behind, growling, but kept a wary distance after seeing half their pack mate's head land on the ground, its body following soon after. 

Mara felt a jolt of pain from Luke. While she couldn’t see him, he was several paces behind her, clear in her mind’s eye. One of the voorcats had gotten him on the side. Before long they had surrounded them on all sides, growling and baring their teeth. They might be too many, Mara couldn’t imagine walking away from this without considerable hurt. 

She tightened grip on the lightsaber, but felt Luke draw the Force to him. 

“Hold on,” he muttered.

The closest she could describe it through the bond was something like a clear note as he let go of the energy. She intuited its direction, to the voorcats, within them -- 

All of them simultaneously keeled over.

Mara didn’t move. Several seconds passed and the voorcats stayed, like the first, asleep on the ground. Through the bond, she felt Luke probing and waited.

“Okay.”

She deactivated her lightsaber, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her forearm as she dashed over to Luke. The side of his tunic shirt was a shredded bloody mess where the voorcat had clawed at him and she hissed at the sight even though she felt he had it under control. It probably looked worse than it was.

It looked pretty bad. 

“We need to get out of here.” 

“I’m not sure they’re going to wake up any time soon.” Incredibly, there was a touch of regret in his voice. “I might have been too heavy-handed.”

She almost rolled her eyes at him, but she was momentarily too distracted pulling him away from the mass of voorcats sprawled around them. “Feel sorry for them later. Let’s go.”

\--

They went upstream just to put some distance, mostly due to Mara’s insistence. Through the bond, Luke’s certainty that he'd just sent a pride of voorcats into a coma only solidified.

As ridiculous as that seemed to Mara, she’d take it. She wasn’t about to take any more chances though and set them up at a gully about half a mile from the stream. Once Mara was finally satisfied that it provided adequate cover, she turned her attention to Luke’s injury.

“This is exactly what they wanted,” she groused as she pulled up his shirt, “us stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing.”

“Not nothing -- ow!” he protested as she got to the bit of torn fabric near the wound.

She withdrew with a glare. “Take it off.” She jabbed her finger in the stream’s direction. “And go clean the wound.”

“I was going to take care of it.”

“After cleaning it, I hope.”

Luke scowled at her. “Of course.”

Mara lifted her head up to the horizon as she watched him walk back to the stream. The sun was setting, finally, but the thought was not as comforting as she’d expected it to be. Already the air was growing chilly, but she wasn’t sure what other wildlife might come out to hunt, so they’d decided against a fire. Mara would have preferred they make their way back. It wouldn’t be a fun trek, but at least their belongings awaited.

“They said a night under the stars.” Luke sat next to her. 

Through the training bond, she felt him drawing on the Force to manage the pain as well as ward off the chill, now that he’d taken off his tunic shirt. He’d used the it to staunch the blood and then to dry off. If they had to spend the night outside, the quicker he took care of the wound the better. Every time her eyes fell on him she had to stifle a wince. Coming here was even a worse idea than she’d initially thought.

“It’s fine,” he said softly.

Mara didn’t reply. One thing was to train another thing was to be attacked by feral wildlife. Just the smallest bit of carelessness...

She felt Luke offhandedly pass his fingers over her temple. The bond fell away. 

“Actually, last time you tried the healing technique on yourself. It’s a little different on someone else.”

She blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.” 

“We’re training,” he said cheerily.

“You undid the bond.”

“Because you don’t need it. I’ve already taken you through the basics.”

“Yeah, but on _me_ and they were _burns_. You have lacerations. And puncture wounds. You can do it yourself and it’ll be faster and better. We don’t know if there’s anything out there--”

“When else are you going to practice? At some other moment when there’s someone in worse shape?”

“Fine,” she growled, turning towards him to probe the shallowest gash. “I’ll give it a try.”

“Do--ow! Do you need to be that rough?”

“Oh, stop it.” 

A few hours later she wasn’t exactly done, but at least the wounds were closed. By then, Luke’s eyelids were drooping.

“I’ll take the first watch.” To his recalcitrant look, Mara added, “You were right about the meditation. I’m fine.”

Luke passed a hand through his hair wearily. "Okay.”

He lay down shifted to his good side and was out like a light. 

That was unsurprising -- as early as Myrkr, Mara had found out he was a heavy sleeper. Back then she’d thought it unbelievable to the point of insanity that anyone could sleep with an enemy at their back, but she now knew it was all part and parcel of his irritatingly unshakable faith in the universe.

Luke hadn’t woken up then either, that second time. Not when the cabin door slid open nor when she sat on his bed and removed her boots. It had been her hand at his cheek that had garnered a sharp flash of awareness in the darkened room. His mind probed hers for alarm, then upon realizing there wasn’t any he let go of his pull on the Force. 

“Mara.” There had been a sleep slurred quality to the whisper. She’d shushed him gently. 

He’d turned his head, leaning into her hand, and that was as clear assent as any. She hadn’t seriously expected otherwise, but it still had set off a bit of wonder in her, she had, after all, let herself in, woken him up, and he had no idea what she’d meant to do. She could have done _anything_.

The second time. Mara frowned. She shouldn't be thinking of this here.

But her thoughts would circle back like Jawas to a wreck. Just two nights on the _Karrde_ , and she’d run roughshod over her carefully set lines of what was appropriate at the docking bay. Maybe she was just getting her bearings with whatever it was between them. Close quarters made a mess of things. Before, back at Coruscant, they’d only had their training sessions, maybe some sort of post training dinner or a drink. It wasn’t work, it wasn't sharing more meals than not, apart from the training. The Axxila job was first one they’d done together and if more were on the horizon…

It could be too much.

Mara looked around the darkened plains around them.There might be some gray area between work and play to navigate, but there was absolutely no gray here at least. It was clear. Stable.

She pulled her knees up, staring off into the distance. 

\--

The first two hours of her watch had gone fine, half of the third went passably. Time slowed down to a crawl by the fourth. The problem was so dumb as to be insulting. 

Mara rubbed her arms and shifted.

She was cold. 

They’d been loathe to draw unnecessary attention from other predators through a fire and she’d had no problem summoning the opposite of the technique she’d used earlier against the heat. The problem was that healing Luke’s wounds had taken more out of her than she expected. Her concentration had held fine for the first two hours, by the third, it was shaky, by the fourth it was _gone_. 

She rubbed at her arms feverishly. She’d been trying to pummel through the cold to no avail. The whole thing made her angry and the angrier she got the more proper focus eluded her. She was pulling her knees in, trying again and again, but it was increasingly like holding water with her hands. She didn’t even know how Luke was doing it, and he was _asleep_. Finally, the fourth hour was up and she tapped him on the shoulder.

He’d blinked awake and his eyes had barely focused on her before he was blurting out “Mara,” in a vaguely scolding tone, which she would certainly snap at him for, except her teeth were chattering too violently for her to say much of anything. 

He brushed his fingers at her temple, bringing up the training bond while he rubbed feeling into her numbed hands, pulling her forward until she was against him, head under his chin and rubbed up and down her arms, his thoughts chiding that she should have woken him sooner. It should be awkward, uncomfortable, unacceptable, but she was freezing and it helped. She stayed like that for the minute it took for the Force technique to dial up the heat in her body, careful to keep away from his newly healed side. 

Mara finally felt normal enough to yank herself away.

“How do you lock it on while you’re asleep?” she asked to his still too-concerned look.

The look shifted to self reproach, but before he could say anything, she waved a hand. “Never mind. Teach me later. My concentration is shot.” She sighed. If it weren’t for his pull on the force through the training bond, she’d still be waging a losing battle against the cold. Embarrassing.

Luke reached for her again. “Hey!” Mara protested sharply. It was different now that she wasn't freezing. She was too aware of the press of his skin against hers. The training bond was still up and it was _wrong_. What bubbled up wasn't panic exactly, they had too much history for that by now, the training bond was too familiar, but there was still enough wrong to set her teeth on edge. 

“Spending extra effort of sustaining the technique for both of us doesn't make sense,” he said firmly and the training bond echoed that back. If it was too late to teach her how to lock it on, then this was what they had to work with. He was still angry at himself for not having taught her the proper technique for the lock, but mostly concerned. “This is more efficient.”

Luke followed the statement with a soothing ripple through the bond just before she felt him begin to unthread it.

Mara opted for silence, unsure, but the logic made sense. Now that the cold had faded, tiredness began settling heavily into her bones. The wrongness had flitted away in favor of common sense. She pulled back on her end of the bond. If something attacked them, it would be better to already have it up.

"It's fine," she whispered for emphasis. "Leave it be."

She felt Luke's agreement and he stopped the unthreading. He shifted so she was leaning back against him, her shoulders against his chest, her head turned against his shoulder. He’d dropped his arms, so he was just the solid warmth she was leaning against, nothing more. That was fine.

Even on the brink of drifting off, Mara couldn’t help but go over her collection of mistakes in the day, an old habit. But tonight, encouragement spread through the bond, like a soft whisper: _tomorrow you’ll be better and even more the day after, and even more_ …It rolled over her like a soft blanket, Luke’s faith in her, and she felt herself be lulled into sleep.

\---

A lightening sky greeted her when Mara opened her eyes. She was lying down on the ground, her scarf had been put under her head.

Mara shifted a bit and saw Luke next to her, sitting with his knees drawn up. His eyes were closed, but through the training bond, she sensed him perfectly attuned to his surroundings. Her greeting drew no surprise. She sent off an inquiry, something akin to _anything interesting_? 

In response, Luke invited her to tighten up the bond. She did so and he reached out, her consciousness following. A herd of wiry, thin-limbed dangelos. They grazed by the stream several kilometers below. He was still regretful about the voorcat pride.

Mara opened her eyes and smiled indulgently. Only he would.

Luke’s feelings came back to her, unashamed. “Harming them was unnecessary.” 

That way of thinking was a luxury. “For most of us, it’s good enough that we get away.”

Mara felt him consider it through the bond. “Maybe that’s what mastery is,” he said after a moment. “Learning how to do more with less.”

She grinned. “There’s another word for that.”

He snorted. “Efficiency.”

Mara unthreaded the training bond. “We should get going.” She stretched out the kinks in her back. “The heat will make it only harder as the day wears on.”

He nodded. 

The four hour trek back to the temple passed without incident. The Master greeted them alone in the main hall where they’d met Leya, unsurprised by their arrival. Mara fished out the voorcat tusk from her utility belt and offered it to him without ceremony.

He took it with an appreciative tilt of his head, but only addressed Luke. “Well done. You have earned your audience with our council, Jedi Skywalker. I am Skiesk. Come.” He gestured down a wide doorway to a long corridor. “The Order of the Zeison Sha offers you its hospitality.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I can't write anything brief to save my life. Part two turned into a 10K+ monster so it will be broken into three parts. This means double update week! That's good, right? Kinda? Maybe? I don't know anymore guys, I'm just going to be banging my head on my laptop over here.
> 
> **many thanks to Jaded and blue mint winter for looking at bits of the monster and giving me much needed pointers.

They followed Master Skiesk down a long corridor of the temple building. Mara kept expecting him to explain further what he meant by hospitality, but he simply strode along in silence. There was nothing she could read from him either.

She shared a bemused look with Luke who shrugged. They turned into another corridor until they reached an open hall where five teenagers were doing temple upkeep, two were sweeping while the others cleaned the windows. Once they entered, she felt their curiosity flash, the feeling deepening, once the teens sensed their abilities. All of them stopped in their tracks to stare at Luke. Mara suppressed a smile.

“Sha Kalan,” Master Skiesk addressed Luke. “Is primarily a training institution. We ask that in your stay you follow our customs. Your apprentice will be welcomed as our apprentice with attendant duties including the opportunity to receive instruction. I trust that this is as you have expected?”

It was. She and Luke had gone over this back at the _Karrde_ , thinking that there was no reason to believe that an Order that began as Old Republic Jedi would be any less formal. 

Luke nodded and Mara felt a wave of eagerness before he spoke. “Will I join your warriors?”

The Master shook his head. “Our Council has much to address with you, Jedi Skywalker. I will be your guide.”

She sensed a faint disquiet in Luke, but it quickly dissipated.

“Elas.” The Master called to one of the teenagers, a dark haired boy of about about sixteen, hair cropped close to the head. He put his broom by the wall and came over to them.

Master Skiesk met Mara’s eyes as he approached. “Mara Jade, this is Elas, one of the temple apprentices. Elas, show her to the apprentice quarters and the communal refreshers.” He tipped his head in Luke’s direction. “Jedi Skywalker, the guests’ quarters are this way.” Addressing both of them, he said, “Your bags will be waiting for you in your rooms.”

They were several yards down the corridor before Mara’s guide spoke. “Are all Jedi so late to learn the ways of the Force?”

Had he just called her old? “I’m a special case,” she grunted out.

She’d felt him probe lightly just along the fringes of her mind and instinctively pulled up her shields.

Elas stopped walking. “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“You drew up walls.” 

“So the Zeison Sha find it all right to invade people’s minds?” she scolded.

Elas looked at her oddly. “I wasn't invading your mind. Apprentices aren’t even taught mind melding until they pass their Trials. I was trying to get a sense of your rank on your own terms.”

“You could have asked,” Mara muttered, a bit dismayed that he was right. It had been a delicate touch far more subtle than any she’d remembered feeling...perhaps ever. She bit the inside of her cheek. Maybe when she’d first begun training with Luke, but that had been Wayland and her head had been too much of a mess to remember now how mind contact had felt. They’d set up the training bond just after…

“But would you know how our ranks work?” Elas was saying. “If you had been ungifted we would need to discuss it first, but you’re gifted. It’s much faster this way.”

Was this how it went with other Force users? 

"You don't know me," she muttered.

"But we are gifted," he replied, still broadcasting confusion. "How are we to know one another if not through the gift?"

They were both speaking Basic, but Mara felt as if they might as well not be.

"By _talking_." 

"We are not ungifted. Why should we act as if we are?" He shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. It's not the way of things."

Mara thought for a moment. The whole thing made her uncomfortable, but...she was certain she could push him out if she felt him past bounds. “Okay, fine." Mara took a deep breath. He was only a _teen_. “Try again.”

She was still wary, but the touch was the same, lightly evaluative at the edges of her mind.

“Ah,” Elas said. “You _are_ an apprentice. But like Anse’leya. You’re _sarai_. Adopted." His confusion melted away. "That explains it.” 

“Anse’leya?” 

“The temple guardian, you must have met her. All guests go through her before they can speak to Master Skiesk.”

The female Twi’lek who’d greeted them. “The one he called ‘Leya’?”

Elas nodded. “Master Skiesk is the only one who calls her that. She is his ward. Here.” They had just come to a large room which was bare save for various small pallets lined up dormitory-style. “These are the apprentices’ quarters. Do you need something from your bags? You'll be able to find clothing at the 'freshers.” Her bag had been placed at the foot of one of the pallets.

Mara shook her head. “No, I should be fine with that.”

“All right, I will take you to the 'freshers next.”

Mara was still thinking of the Twi’lek who’d greeted them with such animosity. She was the Master’s ward? She seemed to be Mara’s age. “How do adoptions work among the Zeison Sha? Aren’t we a little old for that?”

“Oh, _sarai_ has a wider meaning than just adopted. It means not raised in the gift.” Elas gave Mara a pitying look which made her bristle. She was not going to be condescended to by a teenager. 

“There's more to life than the Force, you know."

Elas was undisturbed. “Oh, right, but the Force keeps us where we belong.”

“You can belong without the Force."

“If you don’t have the gift, certainly.” Elas didn’t finish the statement as they exited the main building through a back door. 

“And if you do?” Mara prodded, curious in spite of herself.

He blinked at her. “If you have the gift and don't use it?” He stared at her for a long moment. “That is _moten’u_.”

“ _Moten’u_?” she echoed.

Elas seemed to be thinking hard. “Wasteful. Wrong. Like throwing out food during a famine.”

They had arrived to another large building with an open receiving area lined with trough sinks. “These are the communal washing stations. The showers and baths are inside. There are tunics and robes on the shelves by the walls. I will wait here. The midday meal will be served soon.”

Mara went inside after murmuring her thanks. She showered off the dust and dirt of the previous day and put on the simple blue robes provided. A bell rang off in the distance as she exited.

“The bell for lunch?” she asked.

Elas nodded. “At the dining hall.” 

He guided her back in the direction from which they came, except he took a turn and they went up some stairs. These lead to a spacious room with various low tables set up in the middle, large bowls of food arranged in the center of the tables, with what looked like stews and trays of flatbread. 

Conversation made a loud buzz within the room and she felt prickles of curiosity among the Force sensitive beings, even as they were occupied with each other and their meals. Mara and Elas were swiftly handed a bowl with utensils by an aproned Duros female. She caught Mara's eye and gestured to where Luke sat, himself clad in the same blue robes that she’d been given, in conversation with an elderly female Twi’lek.

Like it had been with the apprentices they had encountered, the eyes of the apprentices in the room seemed to be fixated on Luke. While the older Force users were not as blunt, Mara could sense their scrutiny of him through the Force just as acutely. Not all were Force sensitive however, a good number were not, but mingled among them.

A couple of aproned beings like the one who had handed Mara the dishes darted to and from the room next to it, the kitchen, Mara assumed, replenishing bowls, clearing dishes and utensils, wiping down tables, every so often stopping to chat with the beings who were eating. But what surprised Mara was the spread of the ages. From the very old to prepubescent children to teens, not only human, but Rodian, Twi’lek and Duros, they sat on the wooden floor by the tables roughly according to age engaged in animated chatter.

It was more casual than Mara had expected from the display that Master Skiesk had made when they arrived. She did note that most in the hall were either older than her and Luke by a few decades, or near the same age as Elas or younger, although there were a few beings her age here and there. Among peers Mara sensed friendliness, perhaps some competition, but most of all ease. Regard washed from them towards older beings, whenever they approached. The apprentices would straighten up, their movements becoming deferential, only to ease up once they were again among themselves.

Elas excused himself and went to sit with a group of other teens. Mara went over to where Luke sat in front of the female Twi'lek

“This is my apprentice, Mara Jade,” Luke introduced Mara as she approached and took the spot on the floor next to him. “Mara, this is Bem’zule. She’s the temple administrator.”

Mara tilted her head in her direction as she took her seat, reaching for some of the flatbread at the center of the table, realizing belatedly she’d had nothing to eat for nearly half a day. She was _famished_. “Are you one of the Masters?” she asked just before she realized she hadn’t sensed any abilities and bit back a wince -- perhaps that would be a touchy subject for someone who wasn’t Force sensitive here.

But Bem’zule shook her head, unaffected by the question. “Not at all.” She gestured to herself with one elegant green skinned hand, “I’m an ungifted. My son however, has the gift. He’s off in a neighboring village,” she explained “They’re dealing with terrible droughts down south. A large group of our warriors has been sent to help.”

“The families of all the warriors are invited to live on the temple grounds,” Luke added as Mara ladled some of the stew into her bowl. She noted Luke had already cleaned out his.

Bem’zule smiled. “Many don’t, finding it more comfortable to live outside the walls and closer to the markets, but some do, particularly families with younger children who have begun their instruction.”

“The Zeison Sha also extend their service to outlying areas -- outside the settlements with no connection to the Order?” Luke asked.

“There are few settlements with no connection to the Order in Yanibar this day and age. Perhaps a couple which have been recently established. We offer them help provided there is a formal request.”

Mara looked around. “I notice not many of your warriors are here.” 

“Between the dust storms and droughts, our warriors find themselves occupied.” Bem’zule gestured around the room. “When they are not on errand they come.” Her face turned solemn. “The life of our gifted is full of obligations. The greater the gift, the greater the call to service.” 

“Your apprentice mentioned something along those lines. Said that having the Force and not using it was like throwing out food in a famine.” Mara tore off a piece of the bread, watching as the other apprentices folded it and dipped it in the stew. She mimicked their motions.

“Ah, _moten’u_. It is a word in our dialect, part of an expression. We cannot afford to waste anything in a place such as this, the gift most of all.”

Mara’s looked at her quizzically. She would have paused, but she was too hungry. After finishing her piece she asked, “So children are not given the choice not to train?”

“He who is tall let him bring down the fruit for his neighbor. He who is fast let him spread warning of the approaching storm,” Bem’zule spoke as if she were reciting a proverb. “Our children are taught from very young that they are only as strong as their ties to each other. Deciding not to use their gift when these could save the lives of their kin is the height of selfishness.” Her tone lightened as she changed the subject. “Where are you both from? We don't see outsiders much.”

“Coruscant.” Mara went back to her meal.

Bem’zule's eyes widened. “We see outsiders from the Core even less.”

Luke grinned. “I was actually born and raised in Tatooine -- not much different from Yanibar, except we had only the rough equivalent of your summers. Worse. I don’t think anyone there would have minded snowstorms just for the variety.”

Bem’zule’s lekku shifted as more surprise filtered from her. “They might change their minds during our first blizzard. They can last for weeks on end. Our ancestors nearly died that first season.”

“I think that story made its way back to the Old Republic Jedi,” Luke offered, a bit of awe coming into his voice. “Master Yul’sar so Jaar manipulating the air itself, imparting the technique to his fellow Jedi to protect the colonists they had found.”

Her tone became slightly strained suddenly. “Made its way back after the return of your people, you mean. In our histories, it says the Jedi looked on our gifted as odd. Why would they stay in a place such as this when they could go home?”

She took a sip of her water.

“The Jedi histories also say they apologized for their mistake,” Luke spoke carefully adopting what Mara had come to recognize as his mediator’s tone. “It was a tragedy to have left your ancestors behind.”

Her lekku twitched. “Is that how the Jedi interpret our ancestors’ refusal to go with them?” 

Luke paused. “Your histories have it differently?”

She nodded a bit jerkily. “The Jedi asked for our ancestors to return to their fold, not knowing, perhaps not caring that it would mean the desertion of the ungifted.”

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Surely they would have sent for help or stayed--”

“You misunderstand, Jedi Skywalker,” her voice was soft, but an edge had begun to creep into it. “By then, our ancestors were Jedi no longer. The ungifted were their spouses, their siblings, their children. The Jedi had left their own, but the Zeison Sha would never repeat the same mistake. The designations ‘gifted’ and ‘ungifted’ are matters of expediency, you see. _We_ are Zeison Sha.” 

Mara sensed surprise from Luke. She felt a bit of it herself. 

Bem'zule continued. “Our histories make it clear that the ungifted colonists played no small part in saving those Old Republic Jedi who had been left behind, nursing some of them to health when their strength would hold them no longer, giving them insight into the means to survive in this world. Gifted and non, they became our ancestors. Once your people arrived not only did they scorn those ties, but they insisted that at the very least their gifted children should be sent with them. _Our_ gifted children.” 

Her gaze hardened and Mara felt protective feeling ripple from her. “Ties of blood and kinship are not so easily shed. We believe these ties to be the foundation of all others to follow.”

Mara looked away.

“Even if those ties should be absent by misfortune as they are for the orphans and refugees we take in,” her voice became slightly sharper, “why compound that misfortune willingly? Without ties of blood and kinship, the gift has no meaning.”

Silence fell for a few moments until Luke cleared his throat. “I...I don’t feel comfortable weighing in on the Old Republic Jedi’s position on those matters. I hardly had what you would consider orthodox training myself. My childhood was similar to that of your ungifted. I began training after I lost my family to the Empire.”

Bem’zule’s expression went from challenging to empathetic with mild chagrin. “My deepest apologies. I am sorry to have assumed.”

“No need to apologize. I do...wonder about the Old Jedi Order's reasoning.”

“Perhaps that is something for you to consider then.” 

He smiled, and Mara saw a touch of sadness in it. “Perhaps at a later point when there are more of us to make the question relevant.”

Silence fell for a moment. “What about the Empire?" Mara asked. "Did they ever target your gifted?”

“Yanibar never had much to draw the Empire's interest. We've had skirmishes with Imperial outposts over the years, but these only served to encourage them to keep their distance.” She smiled. "We are simply too much trouble to be worth a sustained campaign, I suppose. Survival here is difficult enough."

“No Zeison Sha felt an obligation to aid in the conflict outside of Yanibar?” Luke asked neutrally.

Bem’zule shook her head. “That is the Jedi way. Interfering in conflicts near and far, regardless of whether they are needed or wanted. No, our call is to care for our own. What good is a Zeison Sha warrior who goes to the stars for lofty ideals while his brothers and sisters starve?” She sighed. “Perhaps if the Jedi had cared more for their own they would have found the disease within. We hear their demise was at the hand of one of their own.”

The swell of feeling from Luke was too knotted for Mara to pin down. She could tell Luke wanted to ask more, perhaps how they came to that information, or what else they knew, but Master Skiesk neared just then, greeting Bem’zule with a respectful bow of his head.

“The Council will see you after dinner,” Skiesk announced to Luke. “Meanwhile, we wondered if you and your apprentice would like to familiarize yourselves with the grounds.”

Luke nodded and the Master waved one of the younger apprentices over, a twelve or thirteen year old girl. “Mia, you and Juryn show Jedi Skywalker and his apprentice the grounds once you’re done with lunch.”

She beamed. “Yes, Master.” There was a bit of a bounce in her step as she went back to her table to clear her dishes.

“She seems to enjoy the prospect of being a guide,” Mara noted.

Bem’zule chuckled. “She may, but I suspect it’s because she would prefer that over the cleaning duties that apprentices have after every meal. We have temple staff of course, but it builds discipline and camaraderie for the apprentices to play their part in temple upkeep alongside them.”

They didn’t return to the topic of the Empire, keeping to less volatile topics, Luke asking about life in Yanibar while Mara finished the rest of her meal. After they were done, they were lead out by the two apprentices. Like the rest of the Force users, they radiated curiosity, but didn’t ask any questions, opting instead to provide information about life in the temple with bits of lore sprinkled in. 

“Instruction,” one of them, the boy, Juryn explained, “begins when we’re about five or six depending on the species. But those are initiates. We don’t get called apprentices until the age ceremony.” Their ease in supplying information made Mara think this was not the first time the apprentices had been called to serve as guides. For who? she wondered. The orphans and refugees the administrator had talked about?

The temple and its surroundings were rustic, but the Zeisan Sha apprentices felt proud of it from the way the effusive way they spoke. Apart from the temple, and the communal refreshers, a building that functioned as an infirmary, a storehouse, and crypts towards the far northern end of the grounds. The grounds were larger than Mara anticipated and the sun was setting by the time they returned. 

The other apprentices were bringing out what looked like unignited flame torches which they placed into stands arranged at the back entrance of the temple.

“Oh good,” Mia said. “We have arrived just in time for the lighting ceremony. Good evening, Master Dal.” She bowed her head to a green-skinned Duros male that approached wearing the temple robes. Juryn followed suit. Mara hadn’t seen him at the lunch. 

“Juryn, Mia,” he greeted. “Go help the rest of the apprentices and see if you are needed in the kitchens.”

The apprentices were off after excusing themselves, leaving the Master with her and Luke.

“I am Jil Dal.” He nodded to both Luke and Mara. “You must be Jedi Skywalker and apprentice.”

“Mara Jade, Master Dal,” Luke supplied.

The Master nodded in her direction. “Mara.”

“Master Dal.” Mara copied the apprentices’ gestures. 

He gestured to the torches the apprentices were setting up under the watch of a group of five older blue robed figures, Skiesk and a human female with short, curly hair, beside her was a Rodian and two green skinned Twi’lek, all hooded in the evening chill.

“Skiesk tells me you are not yet a Master of your Order, but as the figurehead, we would like to invite you to join us.”

“I’d be honored.” Luke glanced over at Mara. She gestured for him to go ahead.

She stared as he joined the Masters grouped around the torches. The apprentices, maybe about twenty of them, huddled a few feet away, watching raptly. A few warriors stood to the side conversing quietly with temple staff. 

Mara felt the Force like a wave gathering around them and everyone fell silent. She could feel heat on her skin even though she was a few meters away from the torches. Fire erupted from the torches, licking up at the twilight sky, two moons just beginning to hover over the flames just above temple’s squared stone structure.

The Master's hoods were up and their backs were to the crowd, so the blue robes almost made Luke indistinct among them. Mara could pick still him out from the way he stood, from the square of his shoulders. She could close her eyes and he’d be more than recognizable, familiar like hilt of her lightsaber at her palm, welcoming like an open door.

How long does one delay the inevitable? The thought slinked into her as it always did. All a concession. Time had never been on her side.

The ceremony apparently over the Masters dispersed some going towards the apprentices, others towards the gathered warriors and temple staff. The two Twi'lek Masters turned to Luke. They seemed to ask him something and his answer had them going back forth among themselves. Luke's eyes slid over to her and Mara forced a smile. He frowned. 

The rest of the apprentices and Masters went inside, a few of the staff and warriors remaining. Mara approached the lit torches. She found that if she pushed in a certain direction with the Force, the flame turned. If she pushed in the opposite direction, she got the flame to turn there too. 

“Can you make them into strands?” Luke asked softly, coming to stand beside her.

Mara’s eyes darted up to his face, the flickering light of the fire playing upon it brought uncomfortable memories of blue light washing over his face. The fourth moon of Yavin. She shook her head, not quite trusting her voice.

She turned her head to see the flame divide itself into ribbon-like strands of fire, sparks dashing up, before it became a mass once more.

“Like that,” he said.

“Fine control,” she finally whispered. She shook her head. “I’m no good at it.”

“You won’t try?”

“I know it won’t work.” Mara looked down at her feet, at a mound of dirt and pressed down with her heel leaving a furrow as she lightly dragged it forward. She hated how croaky her voice sounded. “There isn’t any point.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments. His hand fell lightly to her shoulder. “That’s why we’re here.” He squeezed her shoulder. “There’s a lot we can learn from the Zeison Sha.”

Mara snorted, but brought herself back. She fixed him with a glare. “Stop it. You mean me. You’re already a Jedi.”

“That doesn’t mean that I can teach anyone. And it doesn’t mean much for me to be a Jedi if I don’t find a way to pass on what I know.”

Luke got that expectant look and she blew out a breath, turning back to focus on the flame. She visualized a split in it, trying to divide it into strands...

The flame stayed as it was.

The hand at her shoulder lifted and she turned her head. His fingers skidded across her temple, bond flaring to life. Through it she watched him tap into the Force, directing the swirls of energy around the flames, gently brushing them apart, then letting them coalesce into the flame again.

Mara brought her focus to bear, trying to imitate his subtle directing of energy to pry the flame apart. It stayed unchanged.

She got an image of one side of the flame through the bond.

It was annoying to have to start that small, but she did. Mara closed her eyes and summoned her concentration to one side. When she opened her eyes she saw the flame had shifted minutely, slowly dividing itself into a thick strand. It quickly returned to its previous state. 

“That’s it,” Luke murmured. The bond filtered that he was pleased with what she saw as a pathetic display, she was always too hard on herself.

Mara shook her head. That was the difference between them. She saw things as they were, could no longer afford not to.

Luke was about to say something else, but one of the other apprentices approached, a Twi'lek boy Elas' age. “Jedi Skywalker and apprentice -- dinner has begun.” 

Luke gave her shoulder one last squeeze with a disagreement that _no, you don’t_ , and the training bond fell away. He turned to follow the apprentice. Mara gave the flame one last look, and turned to go after them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW content here.

Dinner was a quieter affair now that the numbers seemed to have decreased. They sat with the Masters this time, Master Skiesk explaining that generally the apprentices were given leave to dine with their families or ungifted friends, if they lived near, and spend time with them before their return to the temple for the free hour and evening meditation. Only the apprentices that had come from afar and some who had decided to stay were present a few tables away, along with a few warriors, as well as the Masters, who all lived with their families on the temple grounds. The Masters asked for a run down on recent galactic affairs and Luke launched into a recount of the Thrawn campaign, placing emphasis on Joruus C’baoth and the threat he had posed as underscoring the necessity for the reestablishment of a Jedi Order. Mara listened with mixed feelings, relieved that no one tried to draw her into the conversation. One of the perks of being just an apprentice, she supposed. 

As the dinner winded down, the apprentices began to filter out. Master Skiesk called Anse’leya over from where she sat with the other teens despite being twice as old as them. She seemed to serve some caretaker role as well, perhaps by virtue of her age. 

“Go with Mara," Master Skiesk told Anse'leya as he went to stand. Mara watched curiously, as Anse'leya bent down and gently helped the Master up. He certainly didn't need it. Regardless of his age, he could draw on the Force -- his whole presence was imbued with it. The assumption of weakness would rankle anyone, but what rippled out of the aged Master was fondness and gratitude. Anse'leya's Force presence brightened with it. Mara found herself puzzled at the wordless exchange. 

Master Skiesk was continuing, "Mara will be under your care for the duration of her stay here.” The other Masters stood as well. “Jedi Skywalker, if you will humor us for a while longer. We would like to continue our conversation in the Council Room.”

Luke nodded. “Of course.”

Anse’leya excused herself with a bow of her head wishing the Masters a good evening. Mara copied her gesture towards the Masters before following her out, reaching out with casual good-bye Luke's way. 

She led Mara down the long corridors towards the back of the building and back to the refreshers where she could hear the apprentices gossiping among themselves in the baths. While not as chatty as the other apprentices had been, Mara no longer sensed hostility from the Twi'lek apprentice, just a vague interest no different from the curiosity of any of the other beings she had encountered. She and Mara changed into the shifts provided. Anse'leya went to speak to one of the apprentices while Mara finished her evening routine.

“You’re an apprentice?” Mara found herself venturing after they exited the refreshers and made their way to the sleeping quarters.

Anse’leya tilted her head. “This surprises you?”

“The other apprentices made me think it was rare,” Mara explained. “They thought I was strange.”

“I didn’t start from where the other younglings did,” Ansa’leya said. “Master Skiesk found me years ago. I’ve been Zeison Sha since then.” 

Mara had heard enough about Twi’lek slave trade in the Outer Rim to know not to ask any more.

“I’ve been training for the position of _baras’ul_ ,” she volunteered. “Tester. This is why I reacted so strongly to you. This is customary.”

Temple guardian, Elas had said. “That’s one way of putting it.” Mara gave her a sidelong glance. “You could have hurt someone with that discblade.”

Anse’leya laughed easily, her lekku swishing slightly. “I sensed your Master’s,” Mara tried, but couldn’t help flinching, “power even before your arrival. Had I intended to hurt I would have targeted you instead. I mean no disrespect,” she added. "I am grateful for your arrival. We seldom get visitors that are not those affected by tragedy. It is refreshing.”

“So you don’t get to test them," Mara muttered. "I expect your Master was happy with your performance.”

She grinned, lekku curling a bit at the ends. “He was. Although he did tell me to make it less...theatrical next time.” 

Anse’leya led Mara to the room where her bag had been placed by one of the pallets. “The apprentices start at sun up with temple-wide meditation. After there are tasks around the temple grounds. If you mean to learn our ways, that is where you start. From this point on you are to go through the temple rituals with us. If you have any questions, you should feel free to approach me, although any of the apprentices will answer.” She smiled again, eyes glimmering with humor. “But I should warn you, they might not be quiet after -- you might be giving them incentive to levy some of their own curiosity at you in return.” 

Mara passed a hand through her hair, a bit dismayed at the prospect. “Right.” She looked around the empty room, realizing belatedly none of the other apprentices had followed them. “There’s no one here.”

“This is usually the time when we go through our evening meditation." Anse'leya gestured to the doorway they'd come through with an open palm. "Master Skiesk probably thought you might want to rest. You're welcome to join us if you’re not too tired.”

Mara yawned and promptly imagined herself falling asleep in front everyone. She would pass on that. “If it’s all the same, I think I’ll just turn in for tonight. I’ll join you tomorrow.”

“As you wish. The bells ring at sun up,” she reminded Mara and left. 

Mara climbed into the pallet. It was hard but better than the ground. By all counts, she should have been asleep when her head hit the pillow given the past couple of days. She'd expected it, but restlessness sank into her. Mara found herself sitting up and looking for her datapad. Maybe Karrde had sent her some notice -- there was no connection and she put it away with a sigh. He wouldn’t begrudge her being out of contact. Out of habit, she checked her holdout and its power pack, stowed in an interior pocket of her bag since her arrival to Sha Kalan. Satisfied, she closed and pushed her bag under the pallet. 

She shifted onto her side, her thoughts tangling up. Something about life at the temple had her feeling off balance, maybe it was all the mental contact. Maybe it was falling back into the formalities of an apprenticeship. It had been so long and yet, it still felt as natural as muscle reflex.

Mara frowned. There’d been no one around her then, no other apprentices. It’d been just her. _Only_ her, not because there had been no one else, but because she’d been _favored_ \--

She clamped down on the thought. She wasn't that person anymore. What little she had belonged to her now. Just for that, it was enough.

Even after she pushed the intrusive thoughts away, a sickening empty feeling remained like soot on her fingertips. She shut her eyes tightly. The last time she’d felt that, she’d made a mess, thinking that the life she’d built was slipping through her fingers. That hadn't been true. It wasn’t true now either. She breathed in over the gathering agitation and opened her eyes, itching for the kind of distraction where regret was more an end than a drawback. She’d gotten better at controlling that impulse. Mostly.

Her thoughts tangled some more. Mara hadn’t let herself think about _them_. It would have been too much of an indulgence, and she would definitely not do it while Luke was near. That was just a matter of principle and she’d already come perilously close last night. But he wasn’t here now and technically they weren’t training...

She just wondered, that was all. Mara shifted onto her back and rubbed at her eyes.

Excuses. She could be honest. These were her memories and she wanted to indulge. This was safe.

At least it hadn’t been regret since Coruscant. Not when he’d tampered with her spreadsheets on purpose. Not before the Axxila job either. That time she’d gone to Luke’s cabin because she’d been tired of thinking of the same exit route problem for hours. Distraction, to be sure, but of a mundane sort. 

Mara closed her eyes again. No. 

She’d gone because he’d given her carte blanche. 

Maybe for both reasons.

Mara sighed and looked up the pallet above her. Probably made of straw by the feel of it. 

Her thoughts looped back. She couldn’t afford not to know her motivations. She needed them to be crystal clear. Within bounds.

It was the trust thing, she decided, and turned to lie on her side.

The second time had been different. Luke had been _asleep_ and she hadn’t even cared if she’d woken him, hadn't she? But he’d leaned into her palm, still half asleep, maybe, and it bothered her that she hadn’t thought past that moment. 

Had there been a time when she’d thought that was all she’d do? Just let herself in to prove that she could, even that late, and leave?

Mara turned to lie on her back again. She wished she had answers.

Because she _hadn’t_ left. She’d passed her hands over him as if she were learning him through touch alone, thinking she could recite pressure points by heart, She knew the bends that sinew and muscle could take, but this was not that. Her mind was used to atomized detail, but she’d tried the opposite, not allowing herself to dwell, tracing over the corded muscles of Luke’s bicep, feeling the different textures of his scars. 

Her heart had been at her throat, the wild beat of it reverberating through her. Mara had told herself there was nothing but the here and now, nestling her head on Luke’s shoulder as she’d dragged her palms over his sides. He had smelled clean like water with an undertone of soap. Uncomplicated.

Several times she’d felt him move his arms and froze, fearing he’d bring them around her, coiled under the dread of it. She should have reminded him of her rules. If he’d forgotten she couldn’t have held it against him, not then. It would have been her own fault anyway for always playing things close to the edge, but Mara hadn’t wanted to speak. She’d wanted him most of all as a blank canvas where she could paint all her longing -- for what, she didn’t know. 

Bodies, though, bodies she knew.

She’d have been forced to leave if Luke had reached for her, and she still couldn’t pinpoint the moment when that apprehension melted away. He hadn’t, not even when she’d rid him of his clothes, nor she’d shifted, trailing her lips down his chest, feeling the tautness of his muscles as he inhaled, a barely perceptible flutter that spoke of restraint.

Mara hadn’t thought she’d done that much, but when she’d gotten the last of his clothing off, she was amazed to find him very hard, tip already slick. Maybe he'd been thinking of last time. 

That Luke might want her was not as much a surprise as him _letting himself_ want her. But if not her, who else? She had an inkling by now of the weight of obligation over him. There simply was no one else.

Sometimes you had to have something for yourself, little as it might be. She understood that. 

An experimental stroke had drawn a sudden needy moan from him that made her clench her thighs. She’d thought she could make everything polite for once.

She had taken him into her mouth, the sequence of gasps it had garnered endlessly gratifying. With a hand under his right thigh, she’d pressed up with the heel of her palm in invitation. There had been a second of hesitation before he'd taken it, hips rocking forward and into her mouth with a groan, low and choked.

Luke had missed the cue next time, arching up, the angle past what she expected, and she had pulled away, drawing out a soft disappointed sound. It had turned into a full fledged moan when she'd licked at the underside of the tip. She had taken him into her mouth again with the same invitation, breathed and took him deeper, down to the root. 

He’d groaned out her name, hands bunching the sheets, but had done better after, hips thrusting slow. Mara had encouraged a steady rhythm of it with an appreciative hum that made him shudder. She considered more pressure, but he had already been drawing in air in sharp gulps, his legs shifting as if looking for purchase. She’d kept her hand where it was curved over his bottom, her other stroking across his abdomen feeling the tightening of his muscles. She had drawn that hand lower, cupping him lightly. His breaths had been coming in harsh pants and she’d felt his climax approach, could taste it on him, and pulled back enough to bring her hand around his length, allowing an increase in tempo. 

Luke’s hand had fallen to her shoulder, he made a sound she thought might be some approximation of her name, but she’d already gotten him in the clutches of his release. He'd come with a rough groan that tapered off into a gasp. She'd swallowed, kept her movements through it, until the hand on her shoulder squeezed minutely. 

Mara had pulled away gently and scooted up so she was half on him, her cheek pressed against his sternum, her hand flat against his ribs. His skin had felt felt hot and damp to the touch and she hadn’t needed anything to be clear, she’d just needed things to _be_.

Luke had whispered her name and there’d been a slight flexing of his fingers. She’d closed her eyes, inwardly shrinking away, willing him not to do anything but breathe. A few moments later he had sighed and the tension lifted. She’d just laid there until the beat of his heart grew steady again.

She’d allowed herself a graze of her fingertips across his cheek and left soon after. 

Mara shifted onto her other side. The memory left her with a dull throb between her thighs, but she could push that aside with something close to relief. In all her life, she had never felt more certain of herself than when she was saying no, especially to herself. That was real. Everything else was smoke. 

The clamor of the returning apprentices broke her reverie. Even in the dark, she felt heat flood her face. It was wrong to think about this here. But she there was something she was missing, something there that made the incident at the docking bay make sense, because everything had been fine until then. She just had to find it.

Mara closed her eyes pretending to be asleep as she listened to the apprentices' hushed footsteps and whispers. Soon enough she found herself drifting off.

\--

The bells began tolling before dawn. Mara was up before Anse’leya woke the apprentices and watched as they stumbled out of their pallets, murmuring soft greetings to one another, their sleepy eyes barely registering Mara as the interloper in their midst. They went out to the refreshers en masse where they all fanned out into the showers, going through their morning routines while engaging in soft chitchat. Mara could feel their curiosity over her, but the feeling died down as the routine went on, all of them donning their robes and filing out to the main hall, an open, expansive room with no furniture. The sliding panels over the windows at either side had been pushed open and the bluish sky was visible.

The Masters sat up towards the front of the room, cross-legged, their backs to the apprentices as they walked in quietly. The air was thick with incense that floated out of a burner in front of the Masters, a bit much for Mara this early. Luke reached out with a greeting through the Force that she responded to as she took a spot on the floor beside Anse’leya.

More beings filtered in little by little until it seemed as if the whole of the temple had gathered. A bell sounded and all in unison began to chant.

It was strange at first. The language wasn’t Basic, and upon listening closely, the chanting appeared to only consist of a repetition of a few syllables. The longer it went on the more striking the effect became. Mara felt the hair prick at the back of her neck. She could feel the swell of the Force above them, around them. Not in a way to call it forth to do anything, just there, similar to meditation, but she’d always thought of meditation as sinking into the Force. Here, the air was heavy with the shimmering flow of it, the energy sinking into _her_. She thought she could feel it seeping through her very pores.

Mara found herself murmuring the syllables, something about the atmosphere drawing her in, until she felt she was losing all sense of time and place, while at the same time, _present_ , and connected in ways she couldn't parse.

A timeless moment later, the chanting died down, silence descending thickly over the hall.

A bell clanged outside, breaking the spell. The apprentices slowly stood. Mara wanted to stand and go with them, but there was a weird feeling in the middle of her chest. It wasn’t bad necessarily, just a feeling that she should remain here, in the quiet, for just a bit longer, feeling out what that had been and why she felt a slight shakiness from it. She sensed Luke reaching out in concern when he realized she hadn't moved, but after confirming she was fine, he withdrew.

Anse’leya looked over inquisitively. Mara felt the touch of her mind at the edges, light like Elas’ had been, unfamiliar but distant. Anse'leya walked back towards her, leaned and briefly laid her hand on Mara’s arm. Mara looked up at her wondering if she was expected to respond in some way, but Anse'leya was already turning back to leave with the other apprentices. The Masters, warriors, and other temple staff exited behind them.

Mara stayed in the room alone for a moment. The sky outside the sliding panel windows had taken on an amber glow. Once she felt more settled, she rose and followed the noise out to the dining hall. The murmur of conversation was a counterpart to the shift of minds, louder than it had felt the day before.

She’d meant to take a seat near Luke out of habit, but there was no free space near the Masters’ table, and she was reminded that she was part of the apprentices' group. After taking her bowl and utensils and giving her thanks to an aproned Duros male who bustled around the room, Mara went over to where Anse’leya sat with the other apprentices. Their presences seemed not only loud, but brighter. She didn’t know if it had been the meditation or the fact that they were fully awake. 

Their curiosity flared, more than a dozen eyes zeroing on her as she took her spot on the floor at their table.

Anse’leya tapped on her bowl with the spoon. “This is Mara,” she announced without preamble. “She is a Jedi apprentice--” whispers broke out at that and Anse’leya threw a sharp look in their direction, her lekku twitching in what Mara guessed was irritation, “but she will be learning our ways for a few days. Try not to annoy her as much as you do me.” A couple of snorts broke out. 

Mara felt various minds reach out to hers and it was all she could do not to throw her shields up. 

“Mind touch bothers you.” Anse’leya murmured, a faint note of surprise in her voice.

“Not used to it.” Mara reached forward to ladle something that looked like porridge from the large bowl at the center of the table.

“Because there are no Jedi left?” a human girl of about thirteen asked. "Well," her eyes fell squarely on Mara, "no full Jedi."

“Not true.” Elas leaned forward from where sat beside her and gestured with his head towards the Masters' table. He spoke over a spoonful of his own food. “Jedi Skywalker is a Jedi.”

“Yes, but there’s just you two. Must be awfully quiet." The girl reached for her glass. "Sad." Other apprentices looked at Mara in a way that made her stomach tighten, but she held her tongue.

“Where are his other apprentices?” A Rodian boy piped up. Mara wondered if he was addressing her and felt him mentally nudge her in confirmation. It all felt...strange.

“I...I’m his only apprentice.” She occupied herself stirring her spoon into her bowl.

The whole table dissolved into shocked sounds, curiosity building to a fevered pitch. Questions came so fast after that Mara couldn’t make them out.

“Enough.” Anse’leya used the Force to call attention to herself and the apprentices fell silent. “Our guest can’t even think.” She spooned some of the food into her mouth and swallowed thoughtfully. “It is odd that the only remaining Jedi only have one apprentice -- we don’t lack for numbers, but our Masters usually take on two or three.”

Mara swallowed some of the porridge. “In the future, Lu--Ma--Je,” her tongue refused to wrap around any of the titles, so she simply gave up, ignoring the looks she was getting, “he aims to have a training...center, something like this. This is why he came to see how Sha Kalan runs. He'll take on more apprentices after.” Not the full story, but close enough.

The apprentices' expressions went from curious to skeptical. “There were Masters and apprentices before Sha Kalan was built. Isn’t it better to have apprentices _first_ and then make a school?” a Duros boy asked.

Mara shrugged and tried not to show the unease she felt. Anse’leya seemed to have picked up on it because she said, “That’s enough with the questions. Eat your breakfast, we have work to do.”

That let loose some grousing, but the apprentices turned back to their food and to idle conversation with their peers, leaving Mara to finish her own breakfast in relative peace.

\-- 

The work turned out to be threshing, since most of the diet at the temple was based on sallet, an easy to cultivate grain, even in the unforgiving climate. The apprentices walked to the storehouses where they put on protective clothing, a group of them going towards several ancient-looking models of agribots, turning them on and walking with them out into the fields behind the building.

Mara stared quizzically after them. "You don't have harvester droids?"

"We did," Juryn, one of the guides of the day before answered. "After the fire ten seasons ago, the Masters decided they weren't worth it."

"Here. We use this to separate the grains from the husk by beating the stalk." Anse'leya handed her a flail, a stick almost a meter long with a shorter one about the size of her forearm attached to it with a short chain. She must have expected Mara to have asked what it was. "You've done threshing before?"

Mara shook her head.

"Oh." Anse'leya lapsed into an explanation of the process. The work was tedious and tiring, but easy enough and with Anse’leya teaching her the basics, Mara found it no different to get through than any other manual task. Based on what she'd seen about life at the temple, she supposed it was more an exercise in discipline than actually necessary.

She worked in silence, and she supposed Ansa’leya had spoken to the apprentices as some point, because while she still felt pricks of interest, they mostly only talked among themselves, holding the types of casual conversations of people who lived in close quarters.

It was different from the _Karrde_ though, between the apprentices. There was a layer of mental contact between them unlike anything Mara had ever witnessed. It didn’t feel like a bond so much as a shared language. Suddenly it dawned on Mara...the conversations between the apprentices weren't in Basic. She furrowed her brow, arm at a mid-swing with the flail. But she could understand them. Mara focused on the background chatter for the first time. Not all of it. This must be their dialect, Mara thought, and some of it did bear some resemblance to Basic, but it was the back and forth between minds that accompanied it. Those inner exchanges were as illuminating as gestures to a spoken conversation, a touch deeper than the feelings that Mara could sense when she stretched with the Force. 

She was still dwelling on her surprise when the apprentices became quiet. The storehouse door opened and one of the Masters walked in -- the human woman with curly hair, Kiandra, Mara thought, although she'd started having trouble keeping track of the names of the various beings she’d been introduced to. She was one of the Masters at the torch lighting, at any rate, but had sat far enough away that Mara hadn't registered her at the dinner. This close she could see the gray among her wiry curls and the lines in her face.

“Anse’leya," she called. "Mara, you’re being summoned for instruction.”

“Yes, Master.” Anse’leya straightened up from where she was arranging a large fan with a couple apprentices in front of some buckets full of grains. She tapped one of the older apprentices on the shoulder. Mara sensed Anse'leya handing off her supervision as clearly as if she had spoken.

She and Mara stripped off the protective outer garments, hung them, and trailed after the Master. They were lead to the refreshers where they were given the opportunity to wash and put on what Anse’leya called "proper instruction attire," loose pants with a simple tunic shirt.

The training room overlooked the fields, so Mara could see the tiny forms of the apprentices from the windows. Straw mats were at the center of the room and a collection of discblades of various sizes on the far wall. The Masters sat on the floor at the edge of the mats in conversation among themselves a few feet away from the entrance. Anse’leya stopped at a distance, closer to the door and Mara stayed with her as the Master leading them went to join the others. 

Luke’s wariness, muted as it was, immediately put Mara on edge.

“...the matter of the training meld Jedi Skywalker.” Master Skiesk was saying, his tone faintly scolding, impatience seeping through the Force. “If our histories are to be believed, the Jedi of old did not undo what they called 'bonds' at will. Among the Zeison Sha that would indicate a lack of seriousness towards instruction.”

“That is not the case between us. It’s simply that Mara has obligations that don’t touch upon her training," he replied without missing a beat, casual tone belying the trickle of discomfort Mara sensed. "The Old Republic Jedi had the luxury of devoting their whole lives to matters of the Force. Our current landscape doesn’t afford us the same luxury.” Luke paused. “I would think the Zeison Sha would understand. What is the use of a training bond when a Zeison Sha apprentice returns home?”

"Perhaps, you are not clear on a Master's role, Jedi Skywalker." Master Dal, the Duros, was the one that answered, tipping his bulbous head, lifting a long fingered hand. “A Master is a secondary guardian, a keeper. If a Zeison Sha apprentice returns home to find his family has perished, the meld is an anchor point it consoles, it comforts. If a Zeison Sha apprentice returns and misuses their abilities to challenge their ungifted family, the meld is the tool through which a Master admonishes.”

“You’re speaking of children,” Luke objected. "Mara isn't a child --"

“No, we speak of _instruction_ ,” Master Kiandra spoke up taking her place on the floor by the mats beside another Master. Her disapproval had been gathering with every passing second, and it flared now as she spoke despite the evenness of her tone. “The gifted should not and cannot be left alone, unanchored. The gift needs constant safeguarding, constant keeping. Until a Zeison Sha becomes a warrior, until they prove they can be the keepers of the gift, the meld between master and apprentice stands as a vital tool for guidance. Even after formal instruction is done many cherish and choose to keep the meld until their Master’s passing, painful as its loss might be." She pursed her lips. "These are serious ties, Jedi Skywalker, not ones to take on and off like threshing garments. We can no longer put a stop to the care of our apprentices than we can stop being Zeison Sha."

Luke was frowning.

Mara felt herself tense even more.

“The apprentices are here," Master Skiesk announced breaking the uneasy silence. The remark seemed to be more an acknowledgement of Mara and Anse'leya's presence than anything else. "Let us continue with them."

"The bond,” One of the Twi'lek Masters met Luke’s eyes, but gestured in Mara’s direction. “If you will, Jedi Skywalker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note that all resemblances to VotF and the Qom Jha listening stuff is unintentional. I've always thought the listening-as-an-indicator-of-full-Jediness thing to be a bit silly. Can't Leia in Courtship speak/understand the Witches of Dathomir through the Force? Pretty sure she wasn't a Jedi at that moment in the timeline. So. Yeah.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for blood. I don't think my writing is particularly graphic when it comes to violence, but mileages vary. Just a heads up. Also I'm done pretending I know how long this thing will be.

Mara felt Luke grudgingly thread the bond from his end and her stomach plummeted. The Masters were _watching_ him do it, watching as she brought up her end. From the bond, Luke sent an image of spectators staring at a structure whose contents were obscured, along with a wave of stabilizing reassurance.

They could only see the outside of the bond, not what it contained. Mara breathed a little easier.

“But Jedi Skywalker,” a Rodian Master whose name she didn’t remember said. “You’ve constructed it in a way that your apprentice needs to offer her end of it for it to take. That is...impractical.”

Luke opened his mouth to reply, but Master Dal intervened. “She could be wounded and you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where quickly enough.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “That is not the way it is done.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “This is how we chose it.” 

He was right. The training bond was _theirs_ , constructed over weeks of trial and error with her guiding him through the most resilient parts of her mind. They’d both learned to thread and unthread it together. As far as Mara was concerned it was perfect.

She’d asked Luke how long it had taken his old master to set up his training bond.

“An hour,” he answered, adding quickly, “but Master Yoda had been training Jedi for eight hundred years.”

It was unspoken, too, that the brush of another mind beyond bounds, if unexpected, if not channeled through the path she chose, didn’t send _him_ into shaking spells, cold sweat streaming down the back of his neck. She was certain he had never lost time over it. 

If they had spent any more time at Wayland, she was sure Luke would have noticed. He knew now at any rate.

“An apprentice with limited or no knowledge of the Force has no business making decisions about something as serious as a meld,” Master Kiandra’s sharp retort brought Mara back to the moment. “You do a disservice to her as her master to let her.”

Mara flinched again and felt Luke recoil through the bond, but he stayed as outwardly unruffled as always.

She’d tell them, Mara thought grimly, clenching a fist hard enough to make her nails bite into her palm. They’d understand soon enough.

She was about to call to them when from the bond, she felt Luke's very pointed refusal, as if he’d said, _No. Let me deal with them_.

“Perhaps we’re being too harsh,” Master Skiesk spoke up. “Jedi Skywalker’s situation is unique. He mentioned only being five years out of his own necessarily rushed training before taking on his apprentice. Did your masters have the opportunity to teach you the proper establishment of a meld?” He barely paused to let Luke answer before continuing. “We can hardly expect him to have the knowledge of a Master.”

“There are hazards to training without achieving Mastery,” Master Kiandra retorted. “There’s a reason that is not done among us."

“Yes, but we don’t lack numbers,” Master Dal intervened. “It is unreasonable expect Jedi Skywalker _not_ to train an apprentice given the current conditions. Even if the situation is outside of what we might consider proper. Even in their heyday Jedi routinely trained without Mastery, didn't they?”

Master Kiandra’s face hardened. She looked like she was going to say something more, but held her silence. Judgement poured from her; it was clear enough what she would have said.

“My point was that it maybe be just a matter of correction and alignment,” Master Skiesk offered.

Mara felt a sudden unwelcome tug on the bond -- too deep. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, just as her breath caught. She immediately threw up her shields. She hadn’t expected that. Too late --

As sudden as it arrived, the pressure eased up as if the intrusion had been plucked away. Mara blinked, her eyes going to Luke who sat in the same posture, hands folded before him. Had he just pushed Master Skiesk out of her mind? He hadn’t been able to do that when C’baoth had come calling. Had it been the bond?

“Don’t do that.” Luke’s voice was soft. "Please." But he’d drawn on the Force for emphasis and the whole council leaned back. Shock was written on their faces.

The surge of possessive feeling was hers. At least, Mara thought so. The feeling was too intense to parse and she clamped on that thought before it could continue to spiral where it shouldn’t.

Luke continued just as calmly, “The training bond between me and my apprentice is outside of your purview. If this is not satisfactory to you, we thank you for your hospitality and we’ll be on our way.”

The Council members looked as surprised as Mara felt. To pick up and go after all it took to get here...

It filtered through the bond with a clarity she’d never felt from it before: the bond was _theirs_ and no one else’s. It was _perfect_ as it was.

Master Skiesk was shaking his head, composure restored. “There is no need for such hysterics, Jedi Skywalker. It was merely constructive criticism.” He sighed.

Mara thought Luke might apologize. He didn’t.

“Well, then to the matter at hand.” Master Skiesk left the previous tension behind and turned back to Mara and Anse’leya, gesturing them closer. “It is customary for there to be an equal transaction between Orders,” he said, turning to Mara. “Your master,” she flinched again at the title, but made herself focus on the words, “has said he would like us to teach you the ways of the discblade. In return, he has spoken highly of your unarmed combat skills. My apprentice,” he tipped his head to Anse’leya who went to one side of the mats, “could benefit from instruction in that domain.”

Mara nodded. 

“It is customary to first display skill before beginning instruction.”

Mara looked towards the mats where Anse’leya waited. She bowed her head in her direction. Her first impression of Anse’leya had been misleading. She didn’t much like the thought of hurting her. 

But if this was how things were done here…Mara cracked her knuckles and her neck, stepping into the mats. She could do this as quickly and painlessly as possible.

“Ready?” she asked.

From the way Anse’leya moved, it was clear that she wasn’t much of a physical fighter herself. It made sense that anyone with mastery of a long distance weapon like the discblade be lacking in close quarters combat skills. Mara waited to get a gauge for her abilities. She didn’t have to wait long.

Anse’leya swung hard. 

Mara threw a block, stepped forward and slammed her fist into Anse’leya’s jaw. She’d misaligned a little and her knuckles stung. 

Anse’leya still crumpled to the floor.

Mara shook her hand. She went to kneel beside the Twi’lek, a bit surprised herself. She had expected it to be easy, but not quite that easy. Anse’leya opened her eyes. Mara stood and offered her a hand to help her up. The Twi'lek took it without any ill will, only a grudging satisfaction. 

Mara found herself nodding at it. Give me a couple of days, she thought, and you won't drop that fast.

“Good.” Master Skiesk looked at Mara. His expression remained formal, but she sensed he was pleased, as if he'd caught her thoughts. “Well then, Leya?”

“Yes, Master,” she said wincing and bringing a hand to her head.

“Show Mara the way a Zeison Sha wields the discblade.” The outpouring of pride there was unmistakable as Anse'leya's response to it. Her previous wince vanished. She squared her shoulders, confidence pouring through the Force. 

Something turned over in Mara’s chest. She’d known once what that pride felt like, to have depended on it -- for it to have been _everything_...

She looked to a spot above Anse’leya’s shoulder. She wasn’t that person anymore. She wasn’t. She squashed the feelings down, but she didn’t want to just squash them, she wanted to tear them out of herself, rip them to shreds, and crush whatever remained under her heel.

Alarm seeped through the bond, _this could stop at any moment._

Mara brought a hand to the back of her neck, sending off something equivalent to an annoyed _I’m fine._ She’d let herself get out of hand. Those feelings should have _never_ touched the bond.

“Mara.” Anse’leya’s expression had shifted to concern. Oh, that was worse.

She shook her head at Anse’leya. Actually, Mara could feel concern from _all_ of the Masters.

Mara squelched the impulse to turn around, and dash through the temple out to the speeder bike, annoyance flipping into mortified dismay. Could _everyone_ read her like a blasted flashing diagnostics display here?

Luke assured her that outside of the bond, she simply seemed hesitant. Maybe only scared.

Mara felt her lips tighten. Being thought scared was fractionally better than the alternative. The more she was underestimated, the better. 

She collected herself, nodded at Anse’leya, and shifted her stance to one of combat readiness. As much as she counted on being underestimated, she didn't want things easy either. This was a match, not a real fight. 

Anse’leya extended a hand towards the weapon rack. A discblade detached itself from the wall where it hung with the other weapons and floated to her hands.

Mara unclipped her lightsaber from her belt. The lightsaber was suddenly ripped out from her hands and soared to land beside Master Skiesk.

“You can’t expect Mara to face a discblade without her lightsaber.” Luke shook his head. “That’s not fair.”

“She can have a discblade herself, should she wish. But that should be her only defense. Just as Anse’leya faced Mara without anything but her fists.”

Mara looked to the wall with the weapons. There was no way she could use a discblade better than Anse’leya; it would just distract her from defending herself. 

“My only defense?” She looked over at Master Skiesk, speaking to him for the first time. “I can’t use hand-to-hand?”

“No.”

Well, that was going to end quick too. Luke’s worry seeped through the bond, spreading fast enough to approach cloying, but it was her turn to offer reassurance. _Let me handle her_. The worry receded, but its echoes misted in the bond. 

She pursed her lips, ignoring it. That gave her no choice, if they weren’t going to let her fight without a weapon, she may as well take the only one they were offering. Mara extended a hand calling the discblade to her. Even that took effort and she knew she’d barely use it -- if at all. She knew what this was all about, but took care not to show it through the bond. It’d be obvious soon enough. The disc was solid metal, heavy in her hands.

“Ready?” Anse’leya called.

She nodded and Anse’leya let the disc fly. Mara caught the first pass with her discblade as if it were a shield, the metal clang of it strident. Anse’leya’s blade swooped back like a boomerang and struck again, too late for Mara to react to the prick of her danger sense. It caught her on her shoulder, a sharp sting that made her gasp and lose her grip, her own discblade tumbling to the mats. Mara rolled down after it, evading Anse’leya’s disc as it viciously slashed down through the air. 

Mara sprang up in time to counter Anse’leya’s next strikes, again using her own as a shield, but her hold on her own blade was careless. She had grabbed it by its edges and in her flurry of blocks against Anse’leya’s lightning fast offense, it had started to cut into her palms. Mara hadn’t even registered pain, just the slipperiness of her hold on the discblade in her bloodied hands.

She bit off a curse as the last strike was hard enough to push her discblade off her grip. She whirled, narrowly missing the next pass and tamped down on the impulse to rush Anse’leya. Mara was sure she could take her out before she let the discblade fly to her again. She’d have to -- the problem with any fight involving blades was that if you didn’t end them quick you’d end up in ribbons.

She couldn’t though. It was against the rules.

Mara gritted her teeth as her alarm sense tingled and she backflipped out of the way of the returning discblade. She extended her focus, maybe she could take it from Anse'leya -- but the Zeisan Sha's Force hold on it was too strong. Mara ground her jaw. At this point, all she had were her skills at evasions and Anse’leya would soon wear her out. 

The discblade whirled towards her again and Mara turned. It missed her stomach, but slashed across her hip instead. Feeling alarm ripple through the Force, she threw herself down again but the discblade came down with her slashing across the side of her neck, blood splattering thickly down the mats. Mara let out a surprised cry, searing pain where her shoulder met her neck, and she’d spring back up, but she needed just one second to catch her breath.

“Stop.” It was Luke’s voice. Mara looked up from where she was down on all fours to see the discblade stop on its way back to Anse’leya. She noticed the bond had loosened a bit, she tapped into it a little wondering why, and Luke’s worry immediately sent her skittering back to her side of the bond. No, she definitely did not need that now. 

“I did not intervene during the last match,” Master Skiesk noted neutrally.

“Mara didn’t make your apprentice bleed out on the mats.” Luke’s voice turned sharp. Mara pushed some reassurance through the bond. They were all surface wounds. She stood up.

“You underestimate your apprentice.”

“You don’t need to _hurt_ her to teach her,” Luke snapped in a tone she'd seldom heard from him. 

“This is not instruction,” Master Skiesk pointed out. “This is an assessment of her current skills.”

“You called this instruction. Mara demonstrated her skill causing the least amount of pain. Is your apprentice unable to do the same?” Mara sent some warning through the bond -- he wasn’t doing them any favors complaining like this. Even she knew that.

The Master’s eyes narrowed. “Your overprotectiveness does her more harm than good. Shouldn’t the training bond tell you where her limits lie? Or is it too loose for that?”

Mara felt a brief surge of anger from him at that, just an instant, before it vanished.

She continued to pour assurance through the bond, _you need to trust me._

At this point, though Luke had to know this was about lasting power. There was no way she could beat Ansa’leya under their rules. The Masters knew it too. It was a test, but they weren’t testing if she could defend herself. She could, all she would have to do is break their rules, but if she did, she’d forfeit the match for sure. She’d fail it. 

Mara wasn’t under any illusions that what she was displaying was any better, but at least no one could accuse her of taking the easy way out. She was at least disciplined enough to take a beating. She kept those thoughts well away from the bond. 

Master Skiesk didn’t wait for Luke to say anything more. “Continue.”

Once more, Mara felt the Force blare alarm. The discblade soared through the air in a silvery flash, and she sidestepped to avoid it, ducking as it whirled past her. It spun back, and she twisted to the side, feeling almost like she and it were in some macabre dance before it whooshed down suddenly. Mara threw herself back in a bend catching herself on her arm, rolling to the ground as it returned. She wasn’t fast enough and a searing pain momentarily jarred her as it sliced across her back. 

_That_ did not feel like a shallow wound at all. 

She yanked on the pain management technique as she stood on shaky legs, trying to evade the discblade’s next arc with a jerk of her head. She’d misjudged the distance and cried out in surprise as it slashed across her brow, blind for a moment as she blinked out the sting of dripping blood from her eyes. 

Mara threw her arms up, she caught the discblade on her forearm and in a desperate hope, pushed into the cut. She trapped the discblade against her arm with the flat of her other palm and tossed herself to the ground, thinking that if she got the weapon between the mats and her body it’d be too difficult for Anse’leya to get back. 

Her arms and her hands were a bloodied mess though, and the discblade slipped out of her hold even before she landed on her stomach. She’d lost sight of the weapon. She would reach out with the Force, but her arm throbbed, and blood was still dripping down her eye, leaving her concentration in tatters. She heard the dull crack of metal on the back of her head and everything thankfully went black.

\--

Mara woke up in a bed more comfortable than her pallet.

“Hey.” The greeting was superflous; their training bond was still in place.

Mara sat up and grumbled a curse as the memories of the match with Anse’leya surfaced. She went through a methodical inventory of her wounds, her hands, her arm, her back, her neck , and found newly healed skin at all of them. “I didn’t last very long, did I?”

She scanned the room, orienting herself out of habit. Sunlight streamed through one of the windows. There was only a bed and a washstand in one corner. Luke’s room, she guessed.

“It was enough,” he said in a tight voice and she flicked her eyes in his direction. Luke radiated concern, a tinge of disappointment in it, and through the bond she caught a vague sense of guilt that explained why. She stayed well in her side intuiting that if she reached any further, the guilt wouldn't be so vague anymore.

“I feel…” Suspiciously well. “Did you put me in a healing trance?”

Luke passed his fingers by her temple and the bond fell away. “A short one. There were too many wounds.” 

It seemed a frivolous use of something like a healing trance still. She didn't want the Zeison Sha thinking she needed to be coddled, especially after that embarrassing display before the match. “I’ve been through worse,” Mara mumbled. 

His eyes clouded a bit and she could have kicked herself for saying anything. “I don’t want it to ever be like that. Ever.”

She flipped her braid back. “It’s not.” She made her tone light. “Nowhere near it. Wasn’t it obvious? They just wanted to see if I would respect their rules.” And, my discipline reflects on you. She didn't say it.

Her eyes went to the side of the window. Through it she thought she might be seeing the courtyard. It must be facing the back of the building.

Mara wasn’t sure exactly how much Luke had seen of her former life. The training bond touched none of it, although there may have been glimpses he’d caught while they were constructing it. She didn’t particularly want to know how much he’d gotten. If he pitied her, he clearly hadn't seen enough. That wasn't a comforting thought either.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

Her eyes were back on him in an instant. “Don’t say that.” It came out harshly chastising. “You want me here.”

His expression softened, shifting to chagrin, words stumbling into each other. “I do. Of course, I do. I just--”

“Don't protect me. That undercuts the whole point of training.” 

“Training is one thing. That,” he shook his head, “felt excessive.”

“Did it?" She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking of the Masters’ concern over her before the match began. "It _felt_ like a test. They were seeing how much I could take before breaking their rules.” She shrugged. “It was trust exercise.”

He nodded slowly. “I...I know that.” He appeared to be at a loss and switched the subject. “You trust them?”

She leaned back against the pillows. “I don’t know,” she replied after a moment. “I trust my limits. I didn’t think Anse’leya would go past them.” Her brow furrowed as she tried to work it out. The Masters wouldn’t allow anything to get out of hand, they were too experienced. Neither would Luke for that matter, if it came to that. But it wouldn’t. “I knew she wouldn’t kill me.” She flashed him a lopsided smile. “It was a matter of just taking a beating.”

Luke flinched and Mara shrugged again. “Bodies are just bodies, Luke. Wasn't your last Master partial to whacking you with a gimmer stick?” She kept the smile. 

"It wasn't like that." But the unease abated a bit, the corner of his lip tipping slightly.

"I guess no one can blame you for being twitchy though, the last Master we met _was_ a few fuel jets short of an engine.”

Luke leaned forward to push back a loose strand of her hair over her ear, his hands by her temple so familiar by now she almost expected the bond to flare up. She had to remind herself that he’d just taken it down. 

He didn’t straighten up, instead peering at her, eyes full of humor. “‘A few fuel jets short of an engine’?” he echoed, smiling. “Did you just make that up?” 

Mara put on an earnest expression. “No, mechanics say it all the time.”

“I don’t know.” He flashed her a look that was completely unconvinced, needling, “I’ve spent a lot of time with mechanics and never heard that expression.”

She could always up the ante. “We can ask Corvis and them about it when we get back.”

“He would never take my side,” Luke objected with a scoff.

She sniffed dismissively. “Any one of the crew would perfectly willing to be an impartial source in this.”

“Impartial? They all practically work for you.” He seemed to catch himself and she saw the beginnings of a deep blush just before he straightened and turned away, the washstand suddenly becoming an object of fascination.

Mara looked away herself, her own cheeks growing hot. Knowing it wasn’t just her having trouble keeping contexts separate should alarm her, but she felt weirdly relieved instead. At least it wasn’t that cloud of guilty disappointment as if _he_ should have been on the mats. Ridiculous. 

It was still wrong here, now. She faked a cough and changed the subject. “For someone that can’t take a punch, Anse’leya’s not bad with that thing. The discblade.”

“No, she’s not,” Luke quickly agreed. “She’s very good with it actually. The little I’ve seen confirms the _Chu’unthor_ files on Zeison Sha skills at telekinesis.” There was something vaguely conciliatory in this tone. “I didn’t expect this much hierarchy though. I volunteered you for discblade instruction thinking you’d like it. I didn’t expect they’d have you jump in head first. Even the old Jedi started their apprentices on training lightsabers.” 

“They were just scratches. It wasn't like she was hacking off limbs,” she muttered offhandedly. “I'll like it better than lifting rocks. It’s less than a week, so I can’t hope I’ll get near as good as any of them, but if I can avoid being sliced up and get a couple of offensive techniques under my belt, that’s good enough. Besides, whatever damage she does, I can work on healing, so it’ll help me there too -- thanks, by the way. Although a healing trance is a bit much.” She didn’t like the expression on his face and moved on. “What do they have you doing?”

Mara sensed he was stifling a sigh. “You mean apart from lecturing me on how long I have to go to become a Master? And how wrong I am about everything.”

That, she hadn’t expected. “Really? So that --”

“Was the tip of the iceberg.” Luke rubbed his forehead. “Non stop since yesterday.” 

“They seemed...friendlier last night when they invited you to light the torches.”

He waved a hand. “It’s fine. I just forgot how difficult Masters can be.” He shook his head. “Don't listen to me. I shouldn’t be feeling sorry for myself. Master Yoda never went easy on me either.” He closed his eyes. "Maybe there's something in what you said...after C'baoth." He opened his eyes, expression troubled. "I don't know. Maybe my guard is up."

Mara found that it annoyed her to think that they’d been perpetually dressing him down since yesterday. That didn’t seem hospitable at all. She frowned. After they’d done everything that had been asked of them...

“They’re not like us,” she murmured, thinking of the temple administrator’s comments about the Zeison Sha’s focus on themselves even in the face of the Empire’s targeting of Force users. That sounded too much like them letting others fight their battles for them. “Some of their resentment towards Jedi is probably influencing how they see you.”

Luke stared at her for a moment, surprised for some reason she couldn’t pin down, then his smile broke brighter than daylight.

“I mean, you’re annoying,” Mara had to continue, because she had no idea why he was beaming and this was not the time to ponder it. “But I always figured that was just you _personally_. That has no bearing on you as a Jedi. You seem fine as a Jedi...if all those holos on your exploits are to be believed.”

“You’re a font of reassurance,” he said dryly, but the smile didn’t wane.

She lifted a hand. “Just be grateful that you are not surrounded by beings half your age.”

He chuckled a little. “Oh, it can’t be that bad.”

“If you’re a teacher or babysitter maybe.”

“Gives you a chance to work on your nurturing side.” He schooled himself into a solemn expression.

She slid a glare his way. “I knew I should have let you get the tusk yourself and get eaten alive. You’d be _delicious_.”

And that came out wrong -- to the point that it was all she could do to stifle a grimace, and promptly slid off the bed, making her way to the door.

“They probably need me.” That sounded true, even if she had no idea where. She’d figure that out when she was a respectable distance away. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Mara, wait.” She had managed to get through the door too. Blast it all.

She and forced herself to turn around. She was a blasted adult, wasn’t she?

“The meditation was really something, no?” There was only the interest Luke displayed when he was checking on her technique.

She nodded, torn between gratitude and relief, still mixed with a fervent desire to crawl under the nearest raised surface. “Why was it like that?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a physiological thing. There's mentions of it on old meditation texts.”

“From the incense and the chanting?” she scrunched her face. “Isn’t that too human-centered? Not just humans here.”

Luke nodded. “But I don’t think it’s just that. Maybe to them it has enough familiarity to be comforting, even to those beings who don’t tend to react to sensory input the way humans do.”

“Did the Jedi use that sort of thing?” She did't think so based on the little she’d read. 

“They didn’t -- it’s probably some syncretism, customs from the old colonists’ religion that were integrated into their practices over time. The Jedi believed you needed nothing but the Force. They thought all of that was a crutch.”

Mara frowned. “I wouldn’t have expected to feel anything at all actually.” At first it had been so _alien_ to her. “It was too much. Too much ritual, I guess.”

He cocked his head. “And then?”

Mara thought back and found herself struggling for the words, wanting more precision than she could muster. A few seconds later she shook her head. “I’m going to have to think about it,” she finally said.

“It’d be a valuable exercise for you try to pin it down, even if for yourself.”

She snickered. “And what, miss out on making it just,” she opened her palms dramatically, “a mystery?”

Luke grinned at her. “But it’s not really, is it? Difficult to explain, sure. Not a mystery though. Not to us.”

She thought for a moment. Mysteries didn’t have techniques. You couldn't know why a mystery worked or didn’t. For those who were trained or in training, by necessity there had to be substance.

“I guess not.” She scratched at the newly healed skin of her brow. “Not to us.”

For some reason that pleased him a lot -- his Force presence all but shone with it. Mara couldn’t fathom why. She felt Anse’leya approach.

“Jedi Skywalker,” she said with a deferential tip of her head. “What is your apprentice’s condition?”

Luke gestured her way. “She can answer that herself.”

Mara met Anse’leya’s eyes. “I’m fine.”

She nodded without missing a beat. “Good. We won’t do that again.” She patted Mara’s arm lightly. “We will resume instruction after, just before the midday meal.” She bowed her head towards Luke, then beckoned to Mara with a hand as she turned to walk down the corridor. “Come, we have tasks in the kitchens.”

Mara gave him a sardonic tilt of her head then turned to hurry behind Anse’leya.


	5. Chapter 5

After helping with the setup of the midday meal and eating, followed by some temple upkeep, Anse’leya led Mara back upstairs to the training area. The room looked the same as it did then, although without the Masters, the atmosphere seemed much more relaxed. Mara noted the mats were spotless. A clay pitcher with two cups was set up in a table by the wall. 

"We can practice here," Anse'leya announced.

Mara took her through some basic self-defense moves, which Anse’leya took to with relative ease.

“You dance.” Anse'leya said as they broke for rest and water. “Your footwork -- it’s a dancer’s not a warrior’s.”

An awkward laugh escaped Mara. “I don’t think so. I’ve been fighting longer for longer than I danced.” She went towards the pitcher.

“The first steps are always the ones that are clearest in memory,” she heard Anse’leya say. “Or maybe not memory, memories fade, something deeper.” 

Mara frowned, wanting to change the subject. “Doesn’t seem practical for Zeison Sha not to have basic hand-to-hand combat skills,” she commented after taking a swig of her water.

Anse’leya shrugged, the movement accompanied by the shrug of her lekku. “If you are this close to a Zeison Sha, the warrior has done something wrong.”

“Yes, but why not give yourself as many chances as possible?”

“It’s not necessary. Our skills with the Force and our knowledge of our surroundings are always sufficient.”

Mara looked at Anse’leya skeptically. She wouldn't trivialize how much an edge knowing the environment would give you, but that was different from thinking that it would be enough to stop someone coming at you. Especially if they were armed and you weren't. “Show me.” 

The words were barely out of her mouth when the cup next to the pitcher passed inches from her cheek. She'd moved aside, but was left reeling. That had been faster than what she'd expected. More precise too. 

She turned to see it land on Anse'leya's hand. “And if there wasn't anything around?”

“I could have lifted soil to impair your vision,” she said. “Or hit you with a branch.”

“And if none of that had been available?”

Anse’leya smiled and a breeze materialized, ruffling Mara’s hair. “It takes slightly more concentration.”

Mara tried not to be impressed. “I imagine hard when you’re getting shot at.”

“That implies a blaster that can be taken and wielded against an enemy.” Anse’leya paused. “I’ve only been training for five years. What I can do is child's play next to those who have been undergoing instruction since childhood.”

“But you’re the temple guardian. Shouldn’t that mean that you be more skilled than the warriors?”

She shook her head. “I don’t need it as they do. The testing I do is a largely ritual function. But on the whole our warriors focus more on helping the various settlements with voorcat attacks, with harvest, or droughts, or dust storms. Our environment is our greatest adversary. Not other beings.” She called the discblade to her. “Shall we switch to discblade instruction?”

Mara nodded and stretched her hand to the discblade Anse’leya had brought for her. 

“We have forms for the manipulation of the discblade.” Mara felt Anse’leya tentatively reach out with her mind. “Oh.” She sounded pleased. “You have something similar with the lightsaber."

Mara nodded, intuiting what she meant. “Forms, or do you mean styles? We have those.”

Anse’leya shook her head. She let her discblade float before her. She stretched an arm. The discblade looped around it, spiraled around it. It turned onto its side and looped around her neck before turning vertically once more. She stretched her arm and the discblade spiraled down her arm.

“This is a form,” she said, her hand closing on the blade once it reached her hand.

It might have looked simple to a casual observer, but Mara wasn’t fooled. She felt Anse’leya channeling the Force to hold the disc at a specific distance from her arm, she was turning it at specific moments, and she was doing this without there being any sort of break or pause in the weapon’s movement. This was a far cry from balancing and holding stationary objects or flinging them, however accurately.

“In fact, this is the first form you will learn.”

Mara closed her eyes, drawing a stabilizing breath, and extended her arm. She tapped into the Force to lift her discblade and bring it around her arm. The loop it made was a lot wider than she intended, she overcorrected and the second loop was too tight, the disc jerked up gracelessly as she pulled it up, wary of it getting too close to her arm. She tried to turn it flat and had to stop it and lift it again for it to continue along the path around her neck. She had to stop the disc again as she stretched her other arm, it made awkward uneven loops around her arm until it reached her hand.

“Good,” Anse’leya said, although Mara knew it had been anything but. “We’ll move into another form tomorrow.”

This seemed to be a _sequence_ , simple as it was. She couldn’t keep the surprise off her face. Lightsaber sequences took weeks to learn, and while this was not as complicated, it was a far cry from easy. “What?” 

“You’re excused from afternoon duties, that’ll give you enough time.”

That was pushing it, but Mara nodded. 

Anse’leya patted her shoulder once and departed. Mara looked at the discblade in her hand and lifted it up once more.

\--

Mara kept on practicing even as dusk fell outside the training room. The bells had rung, she supposed for dinner, but Mara wasn’t that hungry, and she had a ration bar in her bag that would do in a pinch. Would send Anse’leya or some of the apprentices to get her? When no one came she figured it was part of the expectations for her work on the the first discblade form. Mara would join the apprentices for meditation after. She’d come here to learn after all, not to socialize.

One of the moons became visible in the sky.

She felt Anse’leya approach, irritation wafting from her Force presence as she entered the training room. “Dinner is almost over,” she said, mildly chiding. “You’ve missed it.”

Mara paused from where she had the disc looping around her arm. “Oh? I thought someone would have come to get me -- I’m sorry. I’ll keep it in mind for later.”

Now the Twi’lek just seemed taken aback. “You are not hungry?”

Mara shook her head. “I have something I can eat in my bag later before I go to bed. I was meaning to join you all for meditation.”

“To eat?” Anse’leya echoed as if she didn’t understand. “Before you go to bed. Alone? Eat alone?”

Mara smiled a little at her confusion. “Do Zeison Sha never eat alone?” 

“Yes, but why would you choose it?”

The conversation had taken a turn Mara didn’t like. “Because you’re busy. Because you don’t feel like talking to anyone. A lot of reasons.” Impatience came into her voice. “Is all of that so hard to believe? You and everyone else here always like to be surrounded by others?”

“There are free hours for individual pursuits. There are obligations that can keep one from sharing meals, but that is not your case. You are not being asked to speak if you do not wish.”

“Look, I told you, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I would have shown up if I had.” She felt weird with all the apologies. She wasn’t a child. This was just a misunderstanding.

“You have nothing to fear from us.”

She let out a laugh. “It’s not that. Really. I told you. Just an honest mistake.” She gestured to the discblade. "I got carried away."

But just as quickly as she said it, she felt Anse’leya reach out. Mara slammed her shields up so fast she lost her hold on the disc and it fell, slashing her arm in the process. 

She cursed, bringing a hand over the wound, immediately turning her focus, all her focus, to a healing technique. Anse’leya stood by silently until she was done.

“Here.” She offered Mara something covered. “Bread.” She pulled out something else from her robes, a low, wide-mouthed jar of some sort and offered it to Mara. “Somi paste. A wretched meal,” she said, “but better than anything you’re carrying surely.”

Mara took both the bread and the jar. She wasn’t going to argue with her about that. Almost anything was better than a ration bar, even if nothing was as convenient. 

Anse’leya turned and gestured for Mara to follow. To the dinning hall, she’d thought, holding her discblade under her arm, but after Anse’leya reached the lower levels, after they passed one of the open rooms where several apprentices gathered along with their masters, she made a turn, exiting the temple. She stopped at the temple steps and sat, gesturing for Mara to do the same.

“You don’t have to do this. I just wanted to make sure I got it down. I would have gone in if I had known. We can go inside.”

“Well now you know. The apprentices just cleaned everything. Better to eat out here.”

Mara didn’t know if she believed that, but dipped the bread and took a bite. The bread was still warm and the sticky dark paste was savory -- it wasn’t bad at all.

“I’m not here for long,” she found herself explaining, over her own annoyance at herself. “I don’t want to waste any time. Not that your customs are a waste of time. Just…” She needed to shut up. What was wrong with her? She was never this bad at playing a part. “We’re not... that formal where I’m from.” Mara dipped another piece of bread into the paste and took a bite. 

“Where _are_ you from?”

She’d said Coruscant to the temple administrator, but it didn’t feel accurate somehow. 

“Nowhere, I guess,” Mara replied after a moment. “I spent a lot of time in Coruscant, but…”

Anse’leya was nodding, as if she’d just understood something. “You have your kin, but no home.”

She thought about it for a second. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

“We see a lot like you.”

Was she thinking she was like one of the refugees the temple took in? Mara shook her head adamantly. “No, it’s not like that. I work with smugglers, that’s all.”

Surprise trickled out of Anse’leya. “I thought you were Jedi.”

Mara forced herself to eat another piece. “I’m not a Jedi. I’m just training.” She could sense Anse’leya’s curiosity flickering.

She felt Luke approach just before Anse’leya could ask anything else. Anse’leya straightened up from where she’d been leaning towards Mara, adopting the same rigid deferential posture she took on with any of the Masters. 

“Jedi Skywalker.” 

“You found Mara,” he said lightly. “Anse’leya, was it?”

She nodded and stretched a hand to call Mara’s discblade to her. “I’ll put this back,” she told her. “Meditation is in the room across from the apprentice quarters. The bells will signal for it.” She excused herself and went inside.

Mara watched her leave. “I’m assuming the Masters noticed I was missing too.” Her lip twisted. “I just lost track of time.I hope they didn’t blame you for that too.”

He gave a shake of his head. “They were mostly concerned.”

“I stick out like a sore thumb, huh,” she mumbled, ripping off another piece of the bread and dipping it into the paste.

He sat next to her. “They seem really protective of their apprentices. It’s almost automatic.”

“It makes sense,” she replied after a moment. “They’re young. Anse’leya is the only one that isn’t a teenager and she’s a special case." She sighed. "The old Jedi trained their kids young too, didn’t they?”

He nodded. “They thought it was easier. Yoda thought I was too old to train.”

“Already full of bad habits, no doubt,” she said as she chewed. 

He smiled. “And all sorts of wild ideas of what it meant to be a Jedi -- probably what irritated him the most.” Then tentatively he added, “Your other training started young, didn’t it?”

“That was different.” She swallowed. “It wasn’t training like this..." When had her thinking about the Force shifted from the strictly utilitarian to something to refine for itself? Sometime in Coruscant probably. The change from just doing things to feeling them had made everything more difficult. "I was always made aware it was...borrowed power.” 

Luke was staring at her as if he were waiting for her to continue. Her voice lowered. “....his power. The Force, but through him...Always through him.” For all that, it had felt like power still. The kind that came with boundless pride and certainty that _this_ was what you were and where you belonged. She looked down at her hands and tore off another piece of bread.

Maybe it'd been damage, part of a systematic breaking that she couldn’t even remember that created those dependencies. Sometimes though, she wondered it hadn’t been deeper -- if she didn’t remember because no breaking had been needed, she’d been born that way, some part of her calling out for it. Palpatine had just found her first, but it could have been _anyone_ who'd known where to reach. 

She didn’t know what sickened her more.

Luke’s expression had crossed into worry, but there was no bond in place and all her safeties were up. There couldn't be that much he was getting other than general moroseness. “It’s yours now."

She banished the thoughts, forcing herself to eat another piece. “I know.” Little, but hers, like everything else. Something else occurred to her as she remembered Anse’leya and the Masters’ concern. She paused mid-chew. “Do you know,” she began awkwardly. “What they see? About my mind?”

His gaze turned inquisitive. “You mean if they see the psychic wound from the mindlink?”

Mara nodded. 

He drew on the Force, stretching towards her but from the distance that she’d come to recognize from Anse’leya and the other Zeison Sha. From him, it felt strange. “I don’t think so.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You don’t think so?”

He smiled, then his expression became slightly more guarded. “I’m more familiar with your mind than they are. It’s difficult for me to guess what they see knowing what I do, for one.”

She was catching that there was more. “What else?”

“That on the other hand, they’re masters. I don’t know what kind of reach or interpretive skills they have when dealing with minds. Obviously, more than I do.” He hesitated. “Maybe they don’t need reach at all to detect certain patterns -- enough to sense you’re... different.”

“Wonderful."

“They wouldn’t be able to know specifics unless you told them. They don’t seem to be familiar with how a bond could be...twisted.” More certainty came into his voice.

Mara swallowed her last piece and turned to look at him. “Do you want me to? Tell them, I mean.” 

He shook his head and she spied a stubbornness in it that made her think of the test.

“It’s not fair for them to be making assumptions about the training bond based on incomplete information, Luke.” She looked down at the last piece of bread in her hands and dipped it in the paste. “Not if they’re using it to rake you over the coals. I know you’re trying to protect me. You don’t have to though.” She finished the piece off. “I mean it,” she said over a mouthful of bread.

“It’s not protection. Whatever you reveal is up to you. Not me. _You_ don’t need to protect me either.” He gave a careless roll of his shoulders. “They can go on disapproving of how we do things for as long as we’re here. Doesn’t change the fact that it works and will continue working once we’re back. At the end of the day, we’re not Zeison Sha. Their rules don’t apply to us.”

She nodded. The bells tolled and she stood, picking up the jar with the paste. “I probably need to put this back and run to meditation.”

“You have some of the paste,” he gestured to the corner of her lip, “there.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Missed it.” She tried again with her thumb. “Further up, not oh--” he chuckled, “now it’s smeared.” 

She was glaring at him when he leaned forwards and swiped his forefinger just above her lip down to almost her chin. “There.” She stared at him, caught off guard. Her expression changed to dismay when he wiped the paste on the knee of his pants.

“Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “ _Skywalker_.”

“What?” he protested. “It’s not noticeable -- and it’s almost lights out. They told us they have laundry droids too, remember?”

“Not an excuse to be a total slob. Were you always this bad? Or have you been spending too much time with Lachton and them?”

“Oh, come on. One spot doesn’t equal total slob. You showing up to meditation with that all over your face though.” He gave her one of those irritating grins. “ _That_ would be sloppy.”

The itch to wipe that grin off his face had become a reflexive thing, like the kick that resulted from a well placed tap to the knee. She very carefully put the impulse away. The bells had rung anyway. 

“Right." She kept her eyes narrowed. "How nice of you to clean up my mess for a change.”

“You’re very welcome.” He was still smirking. 

She shook her head at him, thinking she’d already tripped over herself enough today to take the bait. “‘Night. See you tomorrow.”

The smirk eased up to a softer smile. There was a twinge of something from him. A kind of...resigned disappointment? Not in her necessarily, from what she could get. Broader. The situation, maybe.

She shouldn’t have sensed it that clearly. It might have been that he was worn out, and if the day had continued on the note she’d seen with the Masters giving him a hard time, she wouldn’t be surprised. The Zeison Sha had been different from what she’d expected too. 

Just a matter of adjusting, she thought, sending a bit of vague hopefulness his way. Tomorrow it’d be better.

Luke blinked. He seemed to be about to say something, but thought better of it. He only nodded. “Good night, Mara.” 

\--

The next day passed with a similar routine, temple-wide meditation, breakfast, work, then instruction. She took Anse'leya through several basic hold positions. When they’d switched to discblade instruction, Anse’leya seemed satisfied by the progress she made, middling as it was. To work on her sustained control she was given the discblade to hold aloft for the rest of day. 

Mara laughed. “This sounds like a dangerous exercise.”

Anse’leya smiled. “But the edges of your discblade are not as sharp. If you do drop it down on someone they will get a nasty bump. It’s not that hard of an exercise. Our initiates go through it during their first week here.”

“I imagine all those discblades have to be a hazard at meals.”

Anse’leya nodded. “Oh, we make them put them away for meals. But since you’re the only one and your time here is limited...just float it up higher.”

So it came to be that she went through the meal and the rest of the day with the discblade hovering beside her a couple of feet above her. It felt stupid, but that kind of thinking only sent the disc careening down. Mara had no choice but to shift her awareness of it to the back of her mind. The other apprentices smiled when they saw it, but what she got from them were mostly memories of their own experiences with the exercise instead of the mockery she'd steeled herself for.

She hated to admit it, but she was relieved too that the Masters were spending a couple of days outside the grounds. A trip to a reliquary, Anse’leya had said when she’d seen Mara's eyes drift towards the empty Masters' table in that morning. There was no reason why she should feel any way about Luke seeing her with the discblade trailing after her.

Mara was sent out to the fields after the midday meal with several older apprentices to oversee the agribots. Being old models, the droids weren’t too reliable and a good portion of what was harvested ended up being done by hand. At first she went through the work not noticing anything amiss, but then it dawned on her that the apprentices’ curiosity over her seemed more muted, their conversations less loud in her mind. Near the middle of the task, it hit her why.

It was _her_ curiosity this time that pushed her to turn to the apprentice nearest to her while they were taking their break for water. “Why are you shielding?”

The apprentice, a Rodian girl, turned her multifaceted eyes towards her. She had no reticence in answering, “Anse’leya said mind touch bothered you and we should keep it at a minimum.”

“Quiet! We weren’t supposed to tell her, Kla. It’s rude!” the human girl beside her hissed.

Kla wasn’t chastised. “She asked. It’d be ruder to lie or not answer.”

The girl rolled her eyes. 

“She’s right.” Mara shrugged. “I prefer being told if I ask. And...” She looked around, but couldn’t see Anse’leya. She was probably inside the storehouse. “I’m grateful that you’re being quiet for my sake, but you don’t need to. I came here to learn, getting used to how you...communicate is part of it.”

“Must be lonely to only hear your own voice.” Kla gestured to her head.

Mara shook her head, forcibly pushing thoughts that had _nothing_ to do with the conversation aside. “When you don’t anything to compare it to, you don’t notice.”

“Like the ungifted,” someone volunteered behind them and Mara found herself nodding. 

“Something like that.”

The human girl leaned forward. “Anse’leya said that you carry a lightsaber--”

“Of course, she carries a lightsaber,” Kla interrupted. “She’s a Jedi.”

“She’s an apprentice -- so are we, and we don’t get our own discblades until after the Trials,” the girl retorted sharply.

“We don’t make our discblades,” yet another apprentice weighed in from the side, a human boy. “Jedi made their lightsabers.” He passed a look to Mara. “Make,” he corrected, his apology embarrassed through the Force.

Mara waved it off. “It was part of the Jedi Trials at one point, I think,” she said, mentally going over what she knew. “I didn’t make mine though. I’m not there yet.”

The apprentices let loose a volley of questions each on top of the other. 

She lifted her hands. “I can’t hear all your questions, much less answer the--” Mara felt Anse’leya’s approach just as the apprentices became silent. One by one they went back to their tasks.

Mara stayed behind. “I hope you’re not thinking of scolding them. I sort of...started it.”

“I had that impression.” Anse’leya didn’t seem angry. “They just still have work to do.”

Mara supposed that she should get to her own part too, but even so... “You know,” she began, inflecting her words with what she hoped with geniality through the Force -- was that how it worked? -- “I appreciate what you’re doing for me, but it really isn’t necessary. Last night was a mistake...it wasn’t that I needed everyone to tiptoe around me.”

Anse’leya looked at her strangely. “Mind touch bothers you, but having others tend to you bothers you _more_.”

She bit down on a reflexive sharp tone, trying to make her statement as easy and light as possible. “I don’t need tending.”

Anse’leya only looked more confused. “Of course you do. You’re an apprentice and the _only_ apprentice of the Jedi.”

Her stomach did an unpleasant little twist at that.

“Why does all that bother you?”

“It doesn’t.” Mara stopped talking. It did bother her. It bothered her for far more than she could pin down. “It’s complicated.” She felt Anse’leya prompt for more and bypassed her own nagging desire to just turn around and go back to the fields. That would just make Anse'leya and everyone else continue treating her with kid gloves. “You have…” She thought for a second. “Zeison Sha do things the way they’ve been done for centuries. You have a set path laid out. I--we-- the Jedi don’t have that anymore.”

“Yes, but why does that bother _you_?”

“I’m…not clear on the expectations, I guess.” 

“That’s up to your Master, isn’t it? Doesn’t he let you know whether you’re meeting expectations or not?”

Mara congratulated herself on not flinching. It took an extra second for Anse’leya’s words to register. “I don’t know. It’s not that structured between us.”

Anse’leya chuckled as if she’d said something silly. “You have a training bond. Of course you know.”

She did know. She was moving along in her training, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t a half step from failure. She’d already come close once, and even Luke had called it a _concession_. Things would only get more difficult down the line -- he was right about that too. She could feel it with a certainty that made her hands grow clammy.

“Not now,” she said softly. “In the future.”

“That's unwise.” Anse’leya shook her head. “To worry about future expectations. Isn’t the present challenging enough?” 

Mara had no answer for that, and only shrugged. Everything only confused her more, and this time, she did turn away, and go back to the repetitive tasks and the exchanges between the apprentices like background noise to her increasingly turbid thoughts. Was it just not knowing what the future held? She’d never had much certainty in this life.

At night, she found she couldn’t sleep for the wrenching feeling at the base of her stomach. She was no stranger to it. Some degree of it was always her companion, had been since she learned the truth, but this was different. 

She shouldn't have let Luke follow her.

Mara winced the moment the idea settled. Now it was _there_ right at the forefront of her mind.

She’d let him without thinking it through, without thinking at all, and now if there was some horrifying calamity on the horizon...

She remembered C’baoth’s voice, shrill and insane, inside her head. Even here, with him dead and long gone, she shuddered. Not at C’baoth’s voice. Not just that. 

Mara shut her eyes tight. No, she hadn't wanted to kneel, not with the Emperor's voice singing its own mad chorus on loop in the back of her head. What she had wanted in Wayland, almost desperately at times, was to be far, far away from any situation which would lay the crumbling edifice of her mind bare. Absent that, a blaster bolt to the head. None of that was particularly Jedi-like, but if she found herself in a situation like that again...she didn’t know if she could do better. Even with how much she'd learned. 

Mara shifted on her pallet. Too much to risk, just like it’d been too much to risk to put what little she had on the line for ideals, to quit everything and just go to the fourth moon of Yavin. She’d lived for ideals once.

She curled into her side. All of this was a concession.

It hurt to think that it might not be enough.


	6. Chapter 6

Mara slept restlessly. She kept hearing low crying and hushed whispers until she was blinking in the darkness. She almost sagged with relief when she realized that it hadn’t been yet another nightmare.

Half a second later the relief turned into concern. One of the apprentices was crying. She reached out and felt Anse’leya’s presence around a Twi'lek boy, one of the older teens she had fielded questions from while they were harvesting the sallet. Frekar? Frevar? Something like that. There was no danger she could sense though and she relaxed a little.

Anse’leya spoke in a hushed tone. It took Mara's eyes a while to pick out her shape in the darkness. She was sitting on the pallet across from Mara's, her figure obscuring the younger boy's. “Easy is not what we are called for. It is not the way of the gift. You know this.”

The apprentice sniffed. “I don’t want to. My brother is ungifted, why can’t I be like him?”

“Because you’re different. More is expected of you.”

“I won’t pass. Everyone will be ashamed.”

“Perhaps you won’t,” Anse’leya said bluntly enough to make Mara startle. “But a greater shame would be not to try. Could you face your mother and father having not tried? Could you face Master Kiandra?” 

“I should have never been brought here.”

“Hush. Don’t say such things. You are gifted.”

“Barely. I could have been happy as ungifted.”

Anse'leya's voice was firm. “You would not have known.”

“Maybe that’s better.”

“Not to know your fellow apprentices? The Masters?”

“What does it matter?" he said despondently. "After I fail, I’ll go back to my village and no one will remember I was gifted.”

Something about their exchange made Mara's anxiety drum up. Suddenly it wasn't that much better from waking up from yet another nightmare, cold sweat at her nape. She grabbed her robe as silently as possible and left the apprentices' quarters, going down the dimly lit corridors to the temple steps. She sat looking out into the dark for a long time, sinking her arms into the folds of her robe.

She recoiled bit when she felt Anse’leya approach.

“I know you said you don’t need tending,” she started and Mara felt a bit of chagrin from her. Anse'leya must have sensed that she hadn't wanted her there. “It’s difficult, I suppose, not to tend. For me. Sometimes you've done what you do for long enough...” There was a self deprecating lilt to the statement. "It almost becomes who you are."

“It’s fine." Mara sighed, shutting her eyes at her words. Anse'leya didn't mean them like that and memories were just memories. Her past was over. She knew that.

Anse'leya didn't come any closer, but she didn't leave either.

“It’s a lot,” Mara ventured after a moment, “having to care for all the apprentices.”

“It’s not just me.” Anse’leya tentatively took a seat on the step beside her. “The Masters tend to them as well. It’s just a bit less visible.”

“Who tends to you?”

“Master Skiesk,” she answered as Mara had expected. She didn't expect Anse'leya to add, “Perhaps too much.”

Mara looked at her strangely. “What do you mean?”

Anse'leya stayed quiet for a long moment. “My path. It is not the usual one." She shifted as if making herself more comfortable. "After the Trials we are supposed to be sent out to villages. One or two warriors, more depending on the struggles of a particular settlement. Sha Kalan is no longer our home after we become warriors." She met Mara's eyes. "It is a place to return to -- it is always open to us -- but our homes, our families are elsewhere. By design -- so we can do the most good. Warriors are encouraged to make lives among the ungifted.”

“But if two warriors…?” Mara’s brow furrowed. “Is that taboo?” 

Anse’leya laughed softly. “Oh, no. Not at all. Most apprentices in fact have some sort of connection with another apprentices." She gestured around her, her robe swishing lightly. "This environment leads to that sort of thing. It’s fine, well, within age bounds and adequate precautions.” She flashed Mara a grin that vanished quickly. “When warriors leave however, they discover that it’s much easier to maintain ties with the ungifted. The ungifted are not asked to put themselves in harm’s way. They are not called to travel for months at a time. It’s never easy. Nothing in Yanibar is, but it’s easier for a warrior to know their lifemate is in less risk. That there is someone to tend to their younglings should the worst happen. Between two warriors life is much more uncertain. Most of them come to that conclusion soon after leaving Sha Kalan.”

Understanding dawned on Mara. Anse'leya wasn't an apprentice, not the way she was. “But you didn’t leave.”

Anse’leya's smiled again, something sad in it. “I couldn’t." A few beats passed before she spoke again. "I was taken from my family very young. My older sister and I.” Pain flowered so suddenly and so sharply it took Mara by surprise. “We thought they would keep us together, but she danced better than I, so she was sold first." Her gaze unfocused as she moved her head to stare out into the night beyond the temple. "When they took her to get her chip inserted she...” Her lip formed a faint smile, cleaved and just a bit dangerous, nothing Mara had seen before in her face, even when Anse'leya had bled her out on the mats. “She created havoc.” The smile faded from her face, features turning forlorn, even her lekku seemed to droop. “She told me to leave. And I did.” 

For a few seconds there was only silence, maybe a faint rustle of wind.

“Funny how memories mark us,” Anse'leya murmured, folding her hands on her lap. “Sometimes I wish I had stayed. I wish she hadn’t fought back. I wish _I_ could have.” 

Mara hugged her arms tighter around her under the robe. “You’d still be a slave or dead.”

Anse’leya tipped her head slowly. “I know this." Her voice became softer as she went on, "Usually orphans are placed with the ungifted, but Master Skiesk felt through the Force that he should tend to me. I was raised here as his own. I didn't come to Sha Kalan after my age ceremony like the rest of the apprentices."

"But that's good, right?" Mara offered after a moment. "You belong here."

Anse'leya sighed. "A Zeison Sha is first and foremost self sufficient. It is from that position that we can care for our own." She shook her head. "But I...I couldn't imagine life outside of Sha Kalan. Once I reached my Trials, I thought about failing them on purpose -- if such a thing were even possible, but I had no village to return to and there was no reason to believe I'd be allowed to stay.” She lifted her head towards Mara again. "It was...painful."

“Did you? Fail your trials?”

“In the end, I couldn’t bear disappointing Master Skiesk. I passed. I made myself ready to go out.” She smiled -- at the memory, Mara supposed. “The Masters offered me supplementary training as _baras'ul_ provided I stay...After so much anxiety... best to live in the now, to focus on growth.”

“It worked out.” Mara nodded, strangely happy for her. It was almost...lucky. To end up here, among beings who cared, in spite of the hard living. To have been granted a concession like that. She didn’t speak for a bit. “Will it also work out for the apprentice?” she finally asked. “The one you were talking to?

“Frevar? Probably not.” Anse’leya's eyes became downcast. “He doesn’t have much of the gift.”

Mara’s head snapped towards her. “You’re making him go through the Trials, knowing he’ll fail?”

“He has some measure of the gift. This is what he must do. And we don’t know for certain. He may surprise us yet.”

“What difference does his gift make if he fails?" Mara's frown deepened. "You’re making him go through this for nothing.”

“The life of the gifted is hard. If we started excusing gifted before the Trials for lack of talent, it would be chaos. No." Anse'leya's voice took on a firm tone. "We must know for certain if his gift is not enough. That is part of what the Trials are for.”

“So you force the ones who can’t pass. You humiliate them. To make a point?” Mara hissed.

Anse’leya put a hand on her forearm, just above her wrist. “Not for nothing. We are _needed_ , Mara.”

She yanked her arm away. “He’s nothing but a test. When you’re done, you can just fling him away because he didn’t _work_ ,” she all but spat. 

Dismay passed through Anse’leya's face, her lekku twitching. “No,” she gasped suddenly, and Mara rechecked her shields. Blast it. “He is not insignificant. Even if he were ungifted he wouldn’t be. This experience is painful for him, but -- ” She looked at Mara almost uncomprehendingly. “It is not _suffering_. He is more than his gift.” 

Mara managed to get some of the rush of anger under control, reeling at Anse'leya again being privy to something she shouldn't have been. She felt she should strike back, should shove it in her and all the Zeison Sha's faces that all their lipservice to caring and belonging was an empty gesture. How could she have _ever_ doubted it could be otherwise? “One of your apprentices said that the Force anchors you to where you belong,” she challenged, “After this apprentice fails he won’t belong anywhere, now, will he?”

Anse'leya stared at her, aghast, confusion in her face. “No one is taking his gift away. But if he cannot use it as a warrior then that is the way of things. He will find comfort in his family, in his village. He will be cared for there, and he will find other ways to be of service. We are taught and teach our apprentices to care for our people in accordance to the gift here. We do not _use_ our apprentices.”

Mara had stopped listening to all those lies. “You’re hypocrites,” she seethed.

“You speak of yourself." Anse'leya ignored the insult, speaking as if she were trying to figure it out. "Is that what frightens you? That you might lack the right measure of the gift?”

Mara laughed darkly. “He was right,” she muttered. Was this all it took? Just a tiny bit of kindness, some nice words, and she began to doubt what she knew? Even with all that had happened to her, she was still a fool. Appearances meant nothing. How could she ever doubt that when she saw it every time she looked in the mirror? “I should have never come. This was a bad idea.” She glared at Anse'leya. “I’m not one of your apprentices so you can save all this heartfelt concern. I don’t need it, and I sure as hell don’t want it. Not from hypocrites like you.”

Anse'leya's voice softened. "You are more than your past. As I am.”

Mara froze. When she spoke it was close to a whisper. “You don’t know a damn thing about me. I was _never_ a slave.”

Anse’leya face took on a pained cast. “There are many ways to be stripped of freedom.”

Mara stood, grinding her teeth. She knew better. The nicer it seemed from the outside, the more rotten the core. “We’re not talking about this.” How could she have been so abysmally stupid again?

Anse’leya stood too. “Control your anger, Jedi apprentice." 

Mara flinched. That might be the biggest lie of all, and she snapped, “Don't call me that."

"It is what you are here," Anse'leya's voice went durasteel. "Now. _Act as such_. Surely this is not the quality of Jedi Skywalker's instruction -- anger is still the domain of darkness. It makes no difference that the target is yourself. It traps you and poisons you all the same."

Mara was about to retort with a flash of red in her vision for Anse'leya to _never_ talk to her that way, but something else surfaced. The retort died on her lips and Mara looked away, almost hearing an echo of Luke's voice. 

_You're getting in your own way again._

"The gift is more than this.” Anse'leya was stretching her hands forward in a cupping gesture. “As long as you keep limiting it to what you can _do_ , you’ll be chaining yourself.”

"Stop talking in abstractions,” Mara growled at her. “Of course we're limited by what we can do.”

Anse’leya shook her head. “But not by what we can feel, especially for those in need of care. That is the wellspring of strength.”

Mara had whirled, intending to go back, but Anse’leya’s voice reached her in the silence. “Everything else is hubris.”

\--

Anse’leya said nothing more about it the next day, which passed in the usual routine. Mara kept her distance as she went through her morning routines at the communal refreshers, but the overtures she'd made the previous day worked as a sort of invitation to the apprentices. There were enough of them that even if she was curt to a couple, more would still approach her with casual questions about space travel or life outside of Yanibar as they walked towards the main meditation hall. She’d found herself asking them questions about their lives at Sha Kalan, at first, to prevent them from asking _her_ any awkward questions. By the time morning meditation was over she felt recentered enough that the night's argument felt like a bad dream and her interactions with the apprentices became easier. They regaled her with stories of temple festivals, and carousing in the markets, of training mishaps, and humble ambitions, their easy sense of interconnectedness, both within the temple and out, granting it all an exotic cast. 

They might be Force users, but more that that, the apprentices were _ordinary_ , the kind of ordinary Mara had never encountered, much less interacted with before. Not like this. Most apprentices had families and friends outside the temple, and within the temple there were ties, not only between masters and apprentices, but also between apprentices that shared a master, apart from the casual friendships within each cohort. Existing within such a dense web of connections with other beings had been unthinkable to her for most of her life, even without the Force. 

“And you’re not curious what life is like outside of Yanibar?” Mara asked, reaching for her bowl of porridge.

Juryn’s face became eager. “If I could, I would go to Coruscant someday. They have buildings that touch the sky, no? Speeders everywhere? My mother showed me some holos.”

One of the Duros girls drew her bulbous face into a pinched expression. “I’ve seen the holos too. Crowded. Like the temple during a dust storm. Why would anyone choose to live that way?”

Mara shrugged before she could help herself. “Why would anyone _choose_ to live at Yanibar?” She felt Elas reach for her discblade from the opposite side of the table. Mara Force pushed it back a few inches away, flashing him a warning scowl. 

He laughed, the brat. He was entirely too comfortable. “You’re learning. Finally.”

Mara lowered the disc. If he hadn’t moved it would have given him a solid whack on the head.

“Maybe before you go, you’ll catch me,” he taunted.

“That is just no way to speak to your elders.” She stood up, reaching for her dishes. “I can’t believe Master Kiandra chose you with all I hear about her being the sternest one.”

“Oh, you should see him when he talks to her,” Mia put in with a smirk from across Mara. She lowered her voice in a clear imitation of Elas’, except it dripped with obsequiousness. “Right away, Master. How do you wish it, Master?” She chortled. "Isn't that right, Frevar?" she called to the Twi'lek who was also apprenticed to Master Kiandra. 

"Like you're not like that with Master Dal," he replied smoothly. He was the Twi'lek Mara had heard crying and yet, today there was no sign of the turmoil he'd shown the night before. If she thought about it too much, she almost cringed.

"Should have known," Mia muttered, sinking her spoon into her bowl. She glowered over at Elas. "You're still an oaf."

Mara looked on quizzically. 

"Frevar and Elas share a master," a Duros boy whispered helpfully from beside her. He was Mia's age, probably twelve or thirteen. "Their loyalties are to each other." He laughed softly.

A sudden wind blew Mia’s hair askew, leaving it all over her face. The force of it shifted the plates a little.

Anse’leya’s head shot up from where she sat at the end of the table. “Drop the dishes, Elas, and you’ll pick them up and be sent for kitchen duty by yourself to help Murin.”

By now Mara recognized the name of the main Duros female who presided over the kitchens and dining hall. The apprentices were sniggering at the scolding, and Mara couldn't resist being infantile and sending a smug look Elas’ way. The masters hadn't returned yet from their trip, and the resident warriors had already finished breakfast and left, so it was just Anse'leya and the apprentices. “Listen to your elders.”

The apprentices around her giggled. 

Elas shot her a glare and opened his mouth. 

“And I’ll tell Master Kiandra,” Anse’leya added. 

The chortling at the table got louder and Elas flashed everyone a put upon look, rising from the table with his dishes. But Mara’s discblade followed, and the table dissolved into laughter. Mara concentrated, but it barely shifted back to her. She was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed when the Duros apprentice next to her nudged her with a grin. She felt him add his own pull on the disc. The disc shifted away from Elas’ hold and he turned in surprise. 

Mara pulled it back to her, but it shifted from her grasp a bit and thwacked Elas on the head.

“Hey!”

The entire table laughed and looked in Mara’s direction. She lifted her hands. “I didn’t do it." She smirked a little. "I just _wanted_ to.” 

Disbelieving groans rang out accompanied by skepticism, but she'd dropped her shielding enough and summoned the Force for emphasis.

“I didn’t. I mean it.” Suppressing a smile, she added, “I think it was Mia.”

“It was not me!" Mia piped up a few apprentices down. She pointed at the Duros boy beside Mara. "She’s covering for Bimsha!"

"Shut up, Mi--!" the Duros boy was cut off when his glass of water lifted and poured itself over his head. 

Mia's bowl of porridge went flying in retaliation, but it missed and a good portion of what was left of her breakfast landed on the sleeves of the apprentice beside her and the rest was bedlam.

All of the apprentices ended up having kitchen and dining hall clean up duties for most of the morning, Mara included.

The worst part of it was the porridge stuck to her hair.

\--

"Because you're Twi'lek, any human coming at you is going to go for your lekku, right?" Mara was explaining during instruction after the midday meal and the early afternoon tasks. "Probably means their focus is going to be up here." She gestured to Anse'leya's head. She'd had taken to holds well enough that it was just a matter of practice for her to get her speed up. Mara wanted to move onto other aspects of defense. It was necessarily abbreviated given her short time at Sha Kalan -- she had only a couple of days left, but she wanted to make her time count. "Remember the weak spots I told you about?"

The Anse'leya nodded. "Eyes, throat, nose, solar plexus, kidneys, groin, knee."

"Exactly. So naturally if someone goes for your lekku, you're going to turn back around and claw at their eyes, right?"

"Yes."

"That's a good strategy, and it will probably work most of the time. But it might not if you deal with someone with some experience. Like this -- I'm going to reach out, try to get at my eyes." Mara whipped her arm out, Anse'leya reached out to shove it aside, finger talons extended towards Mara's face. Mara's other hand reached out to grab the front of her tunic shoving her across and down. Only Anse'leya's agility kept her from falling on the ground, but in the effort to regain her footing, Mara had managed to get behind her. A jab of her elbow at her lower back and Anse'leya went sprawling on her stomach.

Mara went back to her original position and offered Anse'leya a hand up. "That's the problem with too much focus on one attack. Even if a technique works, you can't bet it all on that. Like sequences, hopefully by the time you get to the end of one, your opponent won't be in a position to harm you anymore. Try not to think of defense as one blow sufficient to take down whoever is coming at you, but a series of them."

Anse'leya took her hand to stand and Mara coached her through a series of moves. They broke for rest before turning to the discblade. The lull made Mara uncomfortable, making her all too aware of her outburst the night before. She had the impulse to apologize. That was _all_ she'd been doing at Sha Kalan, she thought, dismayed. 

Anse'leya was looking at her with an indulgent expression.

Mara wiped the sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her tunic. "You know I feel very awkward don't you?" she bit out with a wince.

She nodded. "And that you regret it. It's fine." She gave her a sunny smile, pouring good cheer through the Force. "It's good you're not hiding it."

"Is it?" she muttered half to herself.

Anse'leya paused as if thinking. "There is a difference between shielding and managing one's feelings. One is simply hiding them. The other is rerouting them, aligning them to what is most harmonious within. By necessity we focus on the second aspect. Hiding oneself can be useful, but it can also be impoverishing if overrelied upon." 

Mara blinked. 

Anse'leya turned her head to the side. "Is this something Jedi do not consider?" 

She thought for a second. "Jedi have been under threat of extinction for so long," Mara explained. "Shielding is just another line of defense. I've never looked at it any other way." Part of her wanted to stop there, but she kept on, "There's never been a situation where I've wanted to connect with other Force users. The only Force users I've met were...dark, or...insane."

Anse'leya nodded. "Other than your master."

She still flinched a little and felt a small burst of anger for it. Hadn't she gotten better? She closed her eyes. Normally, she'd squelch it, but instead she took a deep breath. The anger remained, muted, but there, she thought with some disappointment.

"Even if you reroute feelings, that won't make them disappear," Anse'leya said softly. "The difference is that if you stamp them down, you risk tricking yourself that they're not there. That's a dangerous position, for at any moment they can spiral and claim dominion over you. To be aware, to keep that awareness gives you the power to decide which feelings will guide you and which will not."

Mara fiddled with her cup. This was a familiar lesson, even if phrased differently. "What do you do with warriors who have given in to the dark?"

"Masters are sent to intervene," Anse'leya said. "We are most susceptible as the result of some tragic event, so the warrior is brought back to Sha Kalan, or is given the opportunity to return to his home village. Usually followed by a Master or another Zeison Sha they are close to until the Council of Masters decide they are able enough to rejoin, if they wish."

"And if they're evil?"

"No rogue Zeison Sha has ever attempted to consolidate power like that. Not the way Sith and Jedi have," Anse'leya said slowly. "The galaxy is too large to fall completely into one being or even one group's control. That arrogance is its own undoing."

Mara simply stared at her.

Anse'leya shrugged. "Our existence is proof of this."

"Because the Emperor wasn't interested. He never saw you as a threat," she couldn't help arguing. 

"Does the reason matter? His control was not complete. Arrogance was still his downfall."

Mara considered it. It did matter. By a stroke of dumb luck, the Zeison Sha had been saved when so many others hadn't. That was important. Incredibly so. Their view of this was frustratingly shortsighted.

"If we had to strike offensively for the protection of our kin we would," Anse'leya was saying before Mara could add any more. "That has happened. Safeguarding our kin is our calling. What about Jedi?" 

"What do you mean?”

"What is the Jedi's calling?"

"Peace and justice?" Mara offered with a tight smile.

Anse'leya's brows knitted. "To the whole galaxy? Just the two of you? Jedi Skywalker's gift is remarkable, but..."

When she put it that way, it sounded just as misguided as the Zeison Sha approach. "That’s why he’s here." Mara continued fiddling with her cup. "To learn what he can for a new Jedi Order.”

Anse’leya tilted her head. “You speak as if that has nothing to do with you. You are the first of his Order, are you not?”

Mara shrugged. “I suppose. I don’t think about it.”

“Why not?”

“Becoming a full fledged Jedi Knight seems too far off.” She stood, thinking that was enough of philosophizing. “Come on, let’s get back to practice.”

\--

Hours later when dinner was over and after the tasks around the temple had ceased for the day, Mara found herself surrounded by the apprentices, all trying to get a hold on her disc. It was a game, one popular with the younger apprentices, but Mara figured she was enough of a novelty that older apprentices like Elas and a good number of his cohort came to join in. The rules were simple enough, just to take the disc and hold it as you ran all the way to the opposite end of the courtyard, despite the other apprentices trying to grab it away. 

Mara was terrible at it.

That was her cue to organize the apprentice to teams and recruit the most talented ones to her team. She remained the weakest link, but her team managed to win a couple of times before she felt the Master’s presences in her awareness. They must have just gotten back and there was something close to a tidal wave of excitement as the apprentices broke away, rushing to the gates in a flourish.

Mara stayed behind practicing with the discblade. It wasn't that she didn’t want to see Luke --she wondered how the trip had gone and whether he’d reached a more congenial state with the Masters. She wasn’t going to run out to the gates like a kid greeting a parent though. That would just be strange. He’d seek her out soon enough. She felt him reach out in greeting, but couldn’t get more other than his tiredness.

Mara supposed he’d gone in to change and shower as the other Masters had, because the apprentices returned before he did. She did worse at this bout, causing her team a loss. The day must have been wearing on her. She was Force yanking her disc from one of the apprentices when she felt Luke approach along with the Masters, and lost her grip on it. With a frown, she concentrated and tugged it back, pulling it from the other apprentice who reached for it. More certain of her hold, she threw them all a challenging look, weaving the disc between them. 

The apprentices slowly dispersed, called by their Masters. Some with left her with good natured taunts others with encouragement, all of it like a breeze at the edges of her mind. 

Mara turned to see Luke waiting for her just a few paces away, clearly after having showered his tunic was new and his hair damp, a shade darker than his usual. His eyes set on her as she approached, Force presence acquiring that brilliance that she’d learned meant he was pleased. She hoped he had managed to find some rapport with the Masters. He stopped then looked at her almost as if he were at a loss for a moment, the brilliance fading a bit and she turned her head in inquiry.

Luke’s eyes fell on the the discblade hovering beside her. He lifted a hand towards it.

She flitted it a few inches from his grasp. “You’re not supposed to touch it."

“Oh.” His eyebrows raised. “The game. Right.”

“Exercise,” Mara corrected. “Everyone can take it from me though.” She leaned forward conspiratorially, scant inches from his jawline, close enough that any further and her shoulder would be flat against his arm. “You see that boy over there?” She lowered her voice, gesturing to a Twi’lek apprentice going up the steps to meet Master Dal, who had Mia beside him already talking up a storm.

“The Twi’lek?” Luke had turned his head and ducked his head and she could feel his breath against her cheek.

“He turned twelve last week. Took it from me like that,” she snapped her fingers, feeling as the suddenness of the motion startled him a bit. “While he was washing dishes.”

Luke straightened up. “They have you doing this even while doing temple stuff?”

Mara nodded. 

“That’s not a bad concentration exercise,” he said thoughtfully.

She passed him a warning look. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m not going to be trailing remotes while meeting with contacts.”

Luke grinned. “But think of how much you could get away with. Bet that would be weird enough to get all your contacts distracted enough not to know what they were telling you.”

Mara chuckled a little as they went back into the temple, going past the dining hall to a room used as a lounging area. The room was bare save for cushions along the entrance and a few low tables. Masters and apprentices sat in groups of two to three apprentices per Master around the room probably catching up. “How did it go at the reliquaries?”

He nodded. “Histories. They’re interesting.” She felt a flicker of dissatisfaction. 

“What is it?”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m still processing them.” He took a spot on the floor of the wide room by the wall. “I’m more interested in what they had you doing while I was gone.” His eyes went to the discblade still floating beside her with barely concealed amusement. “What have you been up to?” His tone lightened. “Apart from whacking unsuspecting teenagers with your discblade.”

The discblade moved slightly forward and she pulled it back.

“They suspect.” She shot a look over to Mia, whose face was the perfect picture of innocence as she sat beside the Twi'lek boy in front of Master Dal several feet from them behind Luke. Something akin to mischievous glee sparked in the Force from her. “They definitely suspect.”

Luke chuckled, catching the exchange with a quick turn of his head in Mia's direction. “You seem to get along with the apprentices.”

Mara snorted. “We’ve just gotten a bit more used to each other.”

“Really?”

She leaned back against the wall. “It’s just the environment here. Kind of pulls you in,” she mused.

Luke nodded. “Different from what we’re used to, but not that different.”

“You mean in philosophy?” 

He shook his head. “Close quarters. Like the _Karrde_ working, eating, sleeping -- with the apprentices,” he added quickly.

She raised her eyebrows and saw faint color rise on his cheeks. It felt like a puzzle to solve how at times he could manage all that was between them better than a space radiator and others, it just _shoved him right down and_ \--

A metallic clang jarred her from her thoughts. The conversation in the room paused. 

The discblade was on the ground next to her after having plummeted from where it had been floating.

Mara looked down at her lap as the conversation picked back up again. Under Luke’s amusement she felt a kind of simmering...interest? She didn’t think she’d felt that before...or maybe not as clearly.

She raised her eyes and as she did it was gone. By the time she met his there was no indication of anything. Either he’d gotten careless or he’d meant for her to feel it. She searched his face, but couldn’t find any clue of which it was. Biting down a twinge of annoyance, Mara turned her attention to the discblade. She meant to reach out with the Force to lift it back up when Luke picked it up.

“Careful,” she warned. “Anse’leya gave me one with more blunted edges for this, but -- ”

“Who’s scared of a few scratches?” That aggravating smirk was back on his face as he offered her the disc. Using the Force seemed too much of a challenge and her concentration was not what it had been when the day had begun, so she reached for the disc, her fingers brushing his, a prickle in her skin at the contact. 

“Not you, right?” She smiled.

The smirk vanished in favor of a mild expression as if it were a mere statement of fact, but he straightened his fingers on the disc, the effect of which was sliding them slowly between hers. And that...was definitely pushing it. “Not me.”

She tilted her head and wet her lips, pleased at how his eyes roved over her face, ending on her lips. She leaned forward slightly and saw his eyes widen a bit, heard his quick indrawn breath. 

Mara lowered her voice. “You should let go of my disc now.”

He blinked, clearly caught off guard, although she wasn’t sure what he expected given that they were surrounded by apprentices and training no less. But regardless, _that_ was a stunning blush as he let go. 

Mara sat back, sliding the discblade to her lap and lapsed into a recount of her practices with Anse’leya. Just like that, the blush faded away. He asked her several questions on more practical matters, getting a sense for the types of exercises she'd been given.

“I wish I could see how they work on scale up close.” The wistfulness was tempered by annoyance.

“They haven’t given you anything to work on?”

“Not like you. Mostly it’s a lot of philosophy. Force theory. That sort of thing.” Luke shrugged. “It feels like they’re trying to make me catch up on the wisdom side, which is fine,” he added. “But it’d be nice to balance it out with something more concrete.” He switched back as if reluctant to keep discussing the subject. “Sounds like Anse’leya is a good teacher.”

“She’s okay. A bit... intrusive, but that’s their way I think. The Zeison Sha. Seems like everyone is in everyone's business.”

He nodded. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Mara pressed her lips into a line.

“Is it too personal?” 

She shook her head. “Maybe just embarrassing. I was woken up by one of the apprentices being upset about their Trials. I...reacted to it. None of my business either.” She forced a smile. “Must be something in the water.”

“You reacted to it?” Luke prompted.

She sighed. “Anse’leya told me later they didn’t think he had the ability to succeed. They’re still going to make him undergo the Trials. I don’t know. Seems unnecessarily cruel. They say they need everyone they can get and going through the Trials is the only way to be sure. Something like that.”

He nodded. “And it didn’t seem fair to you.”

“He was crying,” she muttered. “They’re just kids. They shouldn’t be forced into this. Especially if the people testing them already know they’re going to fail.”

Luke sat back considering. “But they don’t know,” he said after a moment. “Only way to be sure you said.”

“Yes, but is it worth it? Forcing someone to go through with it? Pressuring them that much?” Mara fiddled with her discblade.

“What did Anse’leya say?”

“That it was all me. He wasn’t _suffering_ so it was okay.”

“All you, as in you were imagining it?”

“No -- that I was seeing myself in him and that's why it got to me,” she scoffed, lifting her head to meet his eyes. “I couldn’t see myself in any of the kids here even if I tried, Luke. They’re _kids_ to them bad is a voorcat attack. At their age, I...I wasn't normal.” She looked away towards where the other apprentices sat with their masters and shook her head slowly. “But it’s none of my business. Just how they do things here.”

He stayed quiet for a second. “It’s not really coercion is it?”

“Guess not. No one’s holding a blaster to anyone’s head. But whatever it is, that’s between them, right? We just do things differently.” She looked back at him and continued slowly, “Or I would hope we do.”

He let out a soft laugh. “You mean not adopting this everyone-must-train approach? Just on the basis of practicality that wouldn’t work for Jedi. Can’t imagine recruitment would go well if I showed up and tried to guilt Force sensitive beings into training.”

She stifled the unease that surfaced. She didn’t think he noticed because he continued, “I didn’t do it with you.”

The easiness of his tone was calming and she tsk’ed at him. “Wouldn’t have worked with me -- if by guilting, you mean some line about being guardians of peace and justice for the galaxy. I don’t care about any of that.” 

She didn’t much care for the skeptical look he was giving her either and scowled. “I don’t.”

He lifted his hands, palms up. “I didn’t say anything.”

“In fact,” she pursed her lips, “one thing the Zeison Sha do get right is that at least they think to their own. The Zeison Sha help their clan. That seems more doable than the galaxy at large.”

He thought for a second. “We have a clan.”

“What?”

“The New Republic. That’s where the Jedi will stand and the Force --”

“Yes, but isn’t that a little too broad?”

“Now? Definitely," Luke conceded. "But someday when there’s more of us it won’t be.”

She stared down at the discblade.

“The way I see it, first thing is building an order from the ground up. If we can be of service before that then of course we will, but otherwise the priority is building anew.” He paused before continuing gently, “That what got you worried? Service?”

She closed her eyes. “Maybe,” she pushed out and made herself finish, “Service implies sacrifices and I didn’t exactly do well in that department last time…” She bit her lip.

“I did tell you I cut short my training -- ” he surprised her by saying.

“What?” He might have at some point, but it was nothing she’d really thought about. The details were sketchy in her mind.

“The first time I faced Vader, I...Master Yoda didn’t want me to go. I had seen a vision that Han and Leia were being…tortured.” His voice faded, gaze growing murky. “I walked into a trap. Vader's trap." 

Mara only stared. She didn't remember what she'd thought when he'd first told her, but she was certain she'd remember if he'd told her with this much detail.

"Before I left Yoda said that I should be willing to sacrifice them if I believed in what they stood for.” He folded his hands. “I couldn’t.”

“Do you regret it?” she whispered after the admission had settled. 

He sighed and passed a hand through his hair. “I don’t think about it...but I don't think I could have done otherwise. Some things are too much to ask for.” Luke brought a hand to her shoulder. “None of this will happen overnight, Mara.”

“I just can’t imagine putting everything on the line for just anyone that walks in off the street,” she muttered. "That's what Jedi do, don't they?"

He was quiet for a few beats. “You think I can imagine being responsible for a whole Jedi Order?” 

She scoffed. “It’s not the same, Luke and you know it.”

“Not exactly the same, no. But it’s not as dissimilar as you paint it.” He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s a good thing that you’re working this out for yourself, but don’t get too bogged down with it. Worry about making the most of now.”

"It's hard," she admitted, looking back down at her lap. "Not to worry about what it means to be a Jedi. I keep thinking of Wayland too and..."

His hand slid off her shoulder, but he scooted to sit next to her. “If I could run off half trained and somehow make it, you can do even better. Your skills have improved so much since then."

"I don't know..." She lifted her gaze to all the the apprentices and their masters around her. "I get scared that I'm not going to be strong enough." She turned back to Luke beside her. " Sometimes I...I don't feel strong enough for the kinds of things Jedi face. And this is not me getting in my own way again," she added hastily. "I don't want to give up or anything. It's just...how I feel."

He nodded slowly. "But in Wayland--"

She shook her head. "I was half out of my mind most of it," she blurted out. "That doesn't feel like a great example of being strong enough."

He stayed silent as if mulling it over. "I'm not going to dismiss that, but I wouldn’t be on the _Karrde_ if I didn’t think you could be.”

She flashed him a tight smile, groping for some lightness when everything still felt gloomy. “Sure it wasn’t you going on one last joyride to parts unknown with a bunch of smugglers like Organa Solo said?”

He snorted. “Don’t make me regret telling you that.” But then he smiled. “As much I enjoy batting off blaster bolts and speeder chases--”

“Replacing pump controller boxes and tweaking sublights...”

“Soldering hyperdrive control units--”

“Now that you mention it,” she couldn’t resist poking. “Five days for hyperdrive repair? With that kind of time table it’s a wonder the Alliance --”

“That’s within range,” he interrupted pointedly. “And we had specialized techs to do that. Hyperdrive work is not routine.”

She snickered. “Is too.”

He rolled his eyes at her and went back to his line of thought. “As fun as all of that is...that’s not what I’m at the _Karrde_ for. Don’t get so ahead of yourself you get overwhelmed.” His voice gathered a teasing lilt. “That’s my hard work you’re doubting.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“What?”

“That’s...that’s what Anse’leya said too -- something like that about living in the now.” He raised his eyebrows and she raised the discblade slightly. “Don’t.”

He lifted his chin. “It's just I think I remember Yoda saying--”

“Spout some mangled Basic at me, Skywalker, and I _will_ whack you with this. I will. I don’t even care who’s watching. They already think I’m a terrible apprentice, I got nothing to lose.”

He laughed. “Well, they think I’m a terrible master so it’d be more confirmation than anything else.”

The bells rang. 

“Hey,” she said before she could second guess herself. “For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think I could learn about the Force from anyone else.”

He smiled, but it seemed sad, strangely enough -- she felt that same disappointment from the other night. “Of course you could,” he said gently as he stood up. “There’s just not anyone else.”

She got to her feet. “What do you mean?”

“Ben and Yoda were masters,” he said as if that explained it. “I’m...not. It matters.”

She felt her expression darken. “Don’t tell me you’re buying into all of the Zeison Sha’s master nonsense.”

He tilted his head. “Some of it is true.”

She wanted to say more, but the apprentices had nearly all walked out, all she managed was, “Mastery is not...perfection. Your masters weren’t perfect either.”

“It’s not about that.” He shook his head. “You should go. I don’t want to keep you.” 

“Mara?” Mia said from the doorway.

“Go,” he said. “Or you'll stick out like a sore thumb. We’ll talk tomorrow. 'Night.” He touched her shoulder and went to the opposite side of the room.

She stared at him, an odd kind of unsettled feeling at the dejected slope of his shoulders. How could the Masters spout all of that blather about care if they spent all of their time tearing him down out of their own grudges? Mia called her name again and Mara picked up her discblade and wandered over. 

The apprentice giggled. “We didn't want you to forget again.”

“I wouldn’t forget,” she snapped. 

Mia's face fell a bit. “I didn't mean anything by it.”

Mara blinked, shame surfacing. “I’m sorry. I--I didn’t realize I was so...tired. I have a tendency to get... cranky when I’m tired,” Mara sent her regret through the Force towards her. Tentatively, she reached out and awkwardly patted Mia's shoulder. More apologies, she thought disgustedly. 

Mia brightened once more and that didn't seem so terrible. At least no one seemed to be holding them against her.

“Oh, it’s okay. You know who gets really cranky when they’re tired,” she began with a smile and named another apprentice, continuing at a breakneck speed about an elaborate pranking in response, and Mara found her anger dissipating in favor of something like pity. It should have been Luke here among the apprentices instead of with the stuffy Masters. He’d fit right in -- better than her.

“...and then there was that time that they put _pasa_ in Anse’leya’s porridge.” Mia was saying as they went down the corridor. “It turned red and everything.”

Mara smiled. She didn’t know what _pasa_ was exactly, but the context made it clear and food at the temple was already spicy enough, at least for her. “She noticed right?”

“There was no way to miss it. She ate all of it though. And after she said it was an improvement.”

Mara let a little incredulity into her voice. “Really? I’ll bet Murin wasn’t pleased.”

Mia flashed her a grin. “Anse’leya said it out of earshot because she knew if Murin heard she’d force her to have porridge every meal. Elas still got 'fresher duties for a month.”

Mara made a face, then laughed. They came to the meditation room, the apprentices were all sitting with their knees folded underneath as was their custom.

Vague greetings rippled out towards them as she and Mia took their spots in the room, Mara placing the disc beside her. 

As Mara began to bring her focus inward, she thought again that it should have been Luke here, but this...She took a deep breath, beginning to release all the tension from the day.

This was okay.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaddaya know it's a double chapter Friday! That NO ONE EVER ASKED FOR. Probably means the "next part" will actually be like ten million more parts and this will be over in 2030. *goes back to bashing head on laptop*

The morning bells rang and Mara was just stretching when Mia launched herself onto Mara’s pallet like a slugthrower round.

“I hope you brought credits,” she said in a sing song voice as she flopped to her back. “We’re going to --”

“Mia, get off Mara’s pallet.”

“Get off my bed.”

Just too comfortable. Mara shared a look with Anse’leya as they both spoke at the same time, but Mia was already off with two other apprentices. She was almost _bouncing_. All of the apprentices were more exuberant than Mara had ever seen them.

Anse’leya sighed. “They’re all going to be intolerable today.”

Mara sent off an inquiry.

“We’re going to Sha Uyal for the day.”

From her reading before coming to Yanibar, Mara knew it to be the largest market district outside the temple grounds.

“Those from Sha Uyal will see their families. We do it every week at this time,” Ane’leya explained as they walked behind the apprentices to the communal refreshers. “The apprentices look forward to it.”

“How many are from Sha Uyal?” 

“A little less than a third of them. But each year the temple places those apprentices from other villages under the care of a family. So they all have ungifted kin to see at Sha Uyal and...” Anse’leya sighed again with something akin to gathering despair.

“What?”

“The market,” she said grimly. “There’s always the market.”

\--

Since Sha Uyal was several hours away from the temple complex, they were to leave the grounds after the temple-wide meditation when the sky was still dark. 

Anse’leya had indicated to Mara they’d leave their robes behind, so everyone was dressed in casual tunics and pants. The apprentices spent so much time at the refreshers though that Anse’leya had to threaten to ask the workers to cut the water and lights so they could keep to their schedule. 

Murin waited by where a Trast speeder truck awaited, handing all of them a packed breakfast of somi paste slathered bread along with a bottles of water.

“Ugh,” Elas grumbled by Mara, who was staring at the speeder model, weirdly out of place amid the mass of chattering teenagers. “It’s almost worth not eating anything until we get there.” The words were just out of his mouth when Murin appeared.

“That can be arranged.” She whisked his breakfast away with shocking speed. Mara could have sworn they had told her Murin was ungifted.

“No wait!” he called out vainly as the other apprentices giggled.

“It’s going to take us hours to get there,” he complained to Anse’leya as the rest of the apprentices jumped into the cargo hold of the Trast truck, taking their seats on the two long foldout benches provided. “I’m going to _starve_.”

Mara kept blinking at the incongruent sight. The last time she’d seen one of those, it’d been full of stormtroopers.

“You should have thought about that before you let your tongue get the better of you.” Anse’leya was gesturing to the cargo hold. “Up you go.”

Elas’ voice took an obsequious tone. “Anse’leya _baras’ul_ \--”

She raised a finger. “Not a word, apprentice. You’re too old to be speaking like that. Now, up.” Anse’leya got called by the temple administrator and Elas looked after her, crestfallen.

“You’re going to gloat, aren’t you?” he said without turning.

“Here.” She pushed her bread at him. “Don’t be an idiot next time.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t have a teenager’s appetite,” she said. “I’ll live.”

Elas smiled. “Mia’s right. She said --”

“I don’t care.” Mara jammed her hands in the pockets of her pants. “You heard Anse’leya.” She gestured to the truck with a jerk of her head. 

He was still smiling. 

Mara narrowed her eyes. “Oh, and tell her, and I’ll make you regret it.”

He flashed her a look of disbelief. “She’ll make me regret it _herself_. You’re just visiting, we _live_ with her, Jedi.” 

“You’re feeling awfully formal this morning.”

“You’re still no good with the disc.”

She felt her lip curl into a half smile. “Get in the truck, Zeison Sha, before I tell Anse’leya you stole it.”

He glared at her. “You wouldn’t.“

“Try me. In the truck. Now.”

He shot her one last glare and climbed in. 

Anse’leya came back and did a final count. “That’s everyone,” she told the three temple workers who would be driving them. She turned to Mara. “You can stay behind if you wish and practice with the discblade for the day. We will return shortly after sundown.”

Mara started. She hadn’t considered _not_ going and she’d left her robes behind anyway.

Anse’leya was smiling. “Spending the day going to the markets with the apprentices might be more than any sane sentient being would willingly undergo without proper habituation--” 

Just then there were cries of “No! Stop that! That’s _my_ water bottle --” followed by some incomprehensible yelling and the sounds of a scuffle.

Anse’leya lifted a hand to Mara, excusing herself. She wandered over to the cargo hold. Mara didn’t hear what she said, but she felt a lot of emphasis through the Force and an accompanying wave of mass shame when she came back out.

The cargo hold was silent behind her.

“Where was I?”

“Sane sentient beings don’t take apprentices to the markets,” Mara supplied.

“Ah, yes. Not without habituation.”

Mara smiled a little.

“We welcome you as we do for everything else.” Anse’leya looked at her expectantly and Mara _felt_ the invitation, not only from her, but washing out from the apprentices. She looked away feeling her cheeks grow hot at the bizarre effusiveness of it. 

“Don’t tell me you put them up to this.”

Anse’leya approached and put a hand at Mara’s shoulder pulling her gently along. “I did not. I simply told them that if they didn’t behave they couldn’t expect an outsider to come along. They’re quite eager to show you the food at Sha Uyal. It’s a bit of a highlight for them.”

“I’m going to regret this,” she muttered under her breath as she climbed on.

“Most assuredly.” 

\--

Most of the apprentices had fallen asleep by the time they arrived in Sha Uyal, which seemed to be a densely packed cluster of settlements. Mara herself had dozed off a few times. She felt a bit self conscious about it -- she should be doing something productive with her time, but her datapad still had no signal so there wasn't really anything pressing.

She would wake up when the ride got particularly bumpy and in one of those she’d looked over to see the apprentice next to Anse’leya soundly asleep on the Twi’lek’s shoulder. Anse’leya had caught her staring and lifted one of her lekku in a gesture Mara interpreted as a shrug. 

Mara was awake when the truck came to a full stop, but even before then, she'd felt a swell of anticipation and eagerness from the general direction of Sha Uyal. There was a bit of a crowd, its make up no different from the population of Sha Kalan, a pair of male and female Rodians and Duros were at the front. The female Rodian was holding a youngling which she passed to the male Rodian beside her as she stepped forward with the male Duros, who tapped his female companion on the shoulder as he did. Mara got the impression the male Duros was younger, but mainly from the deferential way he let the Rodian come forward.

“Our kin,” she heard Anse’leya say gesturing to the crowd past the window. “And the warriors placed at Sha Uyal.”

The cargo doors opened and Anse’leya jumped out. She gestured for Mara to walk with her, leaving the apprentices sitting, patiently awaiting Anse’leya’s signal. 

The Rodian female bent her head and Mara felt her greeting through the Force. “Anse’leya, I trust they behaved.”

Anse’leya nodded. “More or less. It’s always the return that is the concern. You and Jortt are well?” She waved at the youngling who the male Rodian turned in her direction. The Rodian gave her a polite nod of his head. “Krall seems to be getting bigger every week.”

The Rodian let out a sound Mara assumed was a laugh since amusement rang from her. “He is. Continues eating more than a voorcat.” 

Anse’leya chuckled and turned to greet the male Duros. “So good to see you again, Leir,” 

“Anse’leya _baras’ul_.” He bowed lower than the Rodian.

“Oh, none of that. Don’t make me remind you it’s been a full two years since you passed your Trials.” She waved to the female Duros a few paces behind. She waved back animatedly. “Have you decided whether to do the life ceremony here or Sha Kalan?”

“We’re still discussing it.”

“Don’t tarry. The drought seems to be spreading down south and the Masters might make a call.”

“Really? I thought things were improving.”

Anse’leya nodded sadly. “Not as much as we hoped. The Masters might leave tomorrow to see just how bad it is. But you might consider bringing Tadu to Sha Kalan and writing her in, then see about doing the ceremony next season. ” He nodded, looking a bit crestfallen to Mara.

“On to happier topics.” The Rodian turned her attention to the apprentices still sitting in the cargo hold pouring barely controlled excitement through the Force. “Let us hope their kin don’t spoil them too much this week. Introduce us to our guest.”

“Vain hope.” Anse’leya turned to Mara. “Mara, this is Luuh Sa and Leir Sit, l. This is Mara Jade, Jedi apprentice to Jedi Skywalker. Master Milos must have told you.”

“He did.” Luuh Sa acknowledged her with a slight bow of her head, her and Leir's welcome washing over Mara. “Welcome to Sha Uyal. There is much to see here.”

“I gather that from the apprentices,” Mara offered, sending her own gratitude back.

“This was the best part of my week too when I was their age. It is only later you find out how aggravating it must have been on the _baras’ul_ or Master leading the ranks.” 

“And speaking of ranks, I suppose it’s time.” Anse’leya sent her assent to the apprentices, who began jumping out and gathering themselves into a neat file. Mara watched as Anse'leya went one by one calling their names as if checking them from a mental list. Once a given apprentice's name was called, a group of beings of various ages would move forward and trade off greetings and amble away together towards a cluster of tents in the distance. 

A lone Twi’lek man remained and approached once the last apprentice was with their kin. 

“You didn’t have to come,” Anse’leya scolded, but Mara felt her Force presence brighten dramatically. “I’m no longer an apprentice.”

He smiled at her. “Why not? It’s custom.”

“Mara, this is Omac’hos. My brother of sorts. I was assigned to his family for these trips. He is a trader and should be busy traveling around the planet over wasting his time with this nonsense. Oma, this is Mara Jade, Jedi apprentice.”

Mara looked at Anse’leya, surprised. Given her confession a night back, she’d assumed Sha Kalan was the only connection she’d had.

“The only nonsense here is Leya pretending she doesn’t like to be taken to a real breakfast like any of the younglings. Do not be fooled, Mara, whatever the Duros’ witch is serving in those kitchens is not food. There’s a reason the apprentices scurry out like slashrats from a fire whenever the prospect of leaving Sha Kalan is mentioned.”

Anse’leya shook her head at him. “Respect.”

He wrapped an arm around Anse’leya’s shoulders and grinned at Mara. “Come. Let me show you what real food is like.”

\--

Breakfast outside of Sha Kalan was an experience.

Mara had thought that temple meals were generally noisy affairs for the most part with the participants engaging in chatter throughout most of it, but it seemed like that was a more sedate reflection of what it was in Sha Uyal. 

Numerous food stalls offering a variety of dishes had been set up in a wide u-shape outside under some tents to block out the already sweltering sun. Apprentices, their kin, and other people from Sha Uyal would line up and yell their orders, the people at the food stalls would yell back in confirmation, then again once the food was done and ready to be picked up. There were tables set up by the food stalls, but also a central dining area. Even though it was only morning, the entire space was packed with apprentices, and their kin, as well as other market goers who seemed unaffected by the commotion of boisterous apprentices and other younglings underfoot. 

It was complete and utter chaos.

The apprentices were now being chaperoned by their kin, but that didn’t stop them --particularly those on the younger end -- from simply coming over to where Mara sat with Anse’leya and Omac’hos, trying to cajole Mara into a bite of some horrifyingly sweet-looking pastry, and then skittering away. The older teens had broken up into pairs or smaller groups, still under the vigilance of adults a table or two away, but carefully keeping their distance from their younger peers.

“You haven’t tasted any of them,” Omac’hos pointed out to Mara after she'd turned down a bite of yet another pastry, a gruesome concoction dripping with molasses. “You would think they’d give up.”

Mara tipped her cup of caf in his direction in agreement, but Anse’leya replied, “You know the apprentices so little.”

“Will the rest of your kin show up later?” Mara asked Anse’leya.

She shook her head.

“They died a bit before Leya was to undergo her Trials.” Omac’hos’ fingers drummed on his own cup. “That was a bad year for dust storms.”

“Oh,” Mara said, at a loss. “I’m sorry.”

This time she was a bit grateful that Bimsha showed up. In his hands he held a flimsi napkin with a ridiculous star shaped shaped pastry that looked deep fried. “Try this.” He offered it to Mara.

Omac’hos and Anse’leya chuckled as Mara shook her head and gestured to her plate with a more sedate looking piece of flatbread with jam on it. “I have my own food.”

“No, but you have to try this. You’ll love it.”

Mara shook her head. “Thank you I appreciate it, but I’m fine. Really.”

Bimsha looked down. “I bought it for you. It’s really good, I promise.”

In front of her, Anse’leya was shaking her head at him. 

Mara chewed on the inside of her cheek. With a sigh, she reached out and snapped a piece off the pastry and ate it.

“It’s good,” she summed up. A little too sweet and kind of oddly fruity, but not the worst she’d eaten. She patted Bimsha on the shoulder. “Okay? Now go.”

“Oh, no.” Mara watched with dismayed as Bimsha sauntered off to a crowd of apprentices and other younglings she didn’t recognize -- the ungifted younglings from the village, she assumed. The Duros boy was looking just a few notches over satisfied, definitely feeling that way through the Force. “Bimsha won some sort of bet didn’t he? Because I fell for it?”

Anse’leya turned around and laughed. 

“Brats.” 

Anse’leya laughed harder. 

Just then Juryn showed up with another abomination passing for confectionery. 

“Let me guess you used your credits to buy this?” Mara scowled. “I’m not falling for it again. I’m not. So thank you, but no, I don’t want any.” 

“It’s so much better than Bimsha’s!” Juryn protested.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I _did_ buy it with my credits.”

“Sure you did.”

He scampered off.

“To think you were once like that.” Omac’hos nudged Anse’leya.

“A long time ago,” she shot back, her lekku lifting in emphasis. “And Master Skiesk was much less tolerant than he is now.”

“How is that old sand beetle?”

Anse’leya’s face shadowed briefly. “He is well, all things considered. Still strong.”

Familiarity must have meant Omac’hos could read something Mara couldn’t because he put his hand over hers. Anse’leya smiled, but it seemed shaky. Through the Force, Mara found she couldn’t sense anything, she’d been expecting...pain? Was Anse’leya actually shielding?

Before she could dwell on it further, Juryn was back at her elbow. “I told you, no,” she said, taking a sip of her caf.

He pushed something at her. A flimsi? “What is that?”

“You didn’t think I bought it with my own credits. I did. This proves it.”

Mara looked at him in confusion. 

“That’s the receipt. It’s so much better than Bimsha’s.” He shoved the pastry at her with his other hand. “I swear it.”

Anse’leya started _cackling_.

\--

An hour and an obscene amount of pastries tasted later, the apprentices were herded off to other parts of the market by their kin in groups of a mix of both apprentices and ungifted. The central dining area growing so quiet it was barely recognizable. 

“Go.” Anse’leya gestured to where two tents seemed to form an entryway to the arcade. “Take some time for yourself. Walk off all those pastries.”

Mara wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.”

“You gave them the opening.” Anse’leya shrugged, chuckling. “I tried to warn you.”

“I didn’t mean to make them think they needed to _buy_ them.” Mara frowned. 

Anse’leya brought a hand to her shoulder. “Pastries are inexpensive and the apprentices are cunning. Don’t trouble yourself. Now go, before some of them hunt you down to show you their favorite kiosks. That would be a fate worse than death.”

Mara smiled, and stood, excusing herself, leaving Omac’hos and Anse’leya behind in the dining area. She went towards the main market area, past all the kiosks with technologies, dated droids and the like, slowing down when she came to the craft kiosks, ducking into one with bright textiles to browse. She briefly thought of buying a new headscarf, and after letting the shopkeeper talk about their dyeing methods, settled on one, paid for it and slipped it into her satchel. She continued her walk, going past a kiosk with pottery on display, browsing along other kiosks selling handicrafts, feeling a bit out of place and strange without the bustle of apprentices around her. Several kiosks later she stopped at one which sold hunting gear. That was more her element.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” the Duros shopkeeper asked.

Mara shook her head eye roving over the thick vibroblades on display. “Just browsing.”

She didn’t expect any sophisticated weaponry here, but it was always interesting to see the tools locals used nonetheless. Her eye landed on a rope, deceptively nondescript, slightly thinner than the usual rock climbing kernmantle ropes beside it. She furrowed her brow. “This isn’t --”

“That one isn’t for sale,” the Duros said, exasperation sparking from him through the Force as he came over. “My scatter-brained apprentice must have put it there. Shouldn’t be there anyway. It’s knotting rope -- for textile making.” He took it back.

“It’s Ilvia-made,” he said, catching her odd look. “They have a kiosk not too far from here.”

“Wait, it’s hand made?” Mara turned around to look at the Duros suspiciously. “You have rope makers here?”

“Hand twisted, yes. They sell primarily to weavers.” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen hand twisted rope.” Not that she’d ever really looked, but she’d never thought that could be artisanry. Then again, Yanibar was more isolated than any other planet she'd visited recently.

“If you’re interested,” he directed her towards the kiosk. The Ilvia kiosk was beside what stood for a teahouse, several patrons playing a tabletop game she didn’t recognize.

Some time later she strolled out, retying her braid. Well pleased, she sat down and ordered herself some tea as she adjusted her headscarf.

Knotting rope, Mara rather liked the bluntness of that, even if they called the crafts they used it for "weaving." That was a misnomer -- it was actually textile making through knot tying, something she’d enjoyed quite a bit as a child. She’d learned other more practical uses for knots later once she was a year or two younger than the younger apprentices. There was nothing quite as versatile as a good knot, and her education had always been with an eye to the transferability of her skills. She had the most indecent urge to slide her hand in her bag and run her fingers through the rope again. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” a male voice asked.

Immediately Mara's eyes narrowed in annoyance. “No.” She pushed her own chair back, not even gracing the interloper with a look. “And no one is sitting in this one either.”

She caught the eye of the kid bringing her the drink and gestured that she was going to take the next table over.

“My apologies, Miss,” the man called out. Mara shook her head, still soundly irritated at having her thoughts interrupted. For days, she’d scarcely had a second to consider something that wasn’t training, or what it meant to being a Jedi, or Zeison Sha--

“Miss, I --”

“I heard you,” she snapped. “I'd like to have my drink in peace, if you don't mind.” 

She had exactly two seconds of a sip. 

“You’re not from here, are you?”

Mara put her cup down. One thing was the intrusiveness at Sha Kalan, from Anse’leya and the apprentices, she wasn’t about to take it from some market vermin for sport.

She fixed him with a straight stare, which he met with something approaching coyness. He was about her age, tan with black hair cropped close to the skull, the lightness of his eyes a contrast under the dark eyebrows, a sharp cut to his jaw. He was attractive...and knew it too. _That_ was the problem. 

“Which part of ‘have my drink in peace’ was difficult to understand?”

“If you wanted to drink in peace you could have an tea in the comfort of your own room,” the man retorted. “Teahouses are for discourse.” And he stood up and sat across from her angling his chair away from the table to bring sit casually, bringing a foot over the knee of the other.

Mara scowled at him. Blast this damn planet and its disregard for personal space. She was about to stand back up when he said, “But perhaps we can come to some understanding.”

She thought herself inoculated against pretty packaging and did stand. “The only thing to understand is that I’m not interested in discourse.”

“That’s plain to see. No, you look like a woman who wants to be told a story.”

Mara stared at him for a long moment. Then she burst out laughing.

She supposed she _could_ use the entertainment for a bit. "Fine. I'll bite. What’s this story about?”

“You, of course.” He gestured almost carelessly to the chair she’d vacated.

She grimaced. “There you went and ruined it with an awful pick up line. Now I have no choice but to go.”

“But you haven’t finished your tea.” He pointed to the pot at her table. “You can tolerate a stranger’s attention while you do.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

He nodded, conceding the point. “Maybe you won’t.”

Intrigued, she sat down, keeping her gaze aloof. In her experience there were two forms of persuasion. One was with force, and the other was with applying pressure to a specific area. Being the target of the first was irritating, being the target of the second could be amusing, depending on the context. Almost everyone got it wrong. 

“You have until I finish my cup,” she said and took a sip. She made a beckoning gesture. “Go on tell me about me.”

And just like that, the terms were hers.

“Holdout at your wrist says smuggler." His eyes passed over her right wrist. "At your belt...” Mara kept her face schooled. “That’s a lightsaber? Still smuggler. Or,” he squinted, “A lucky collector.” He paused again. “Or a thief.”

“Thief?” That was a new one.

“There’s only one Jedi left, no?” He seemed to be thinking back. “Man.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Rumors are the Empire kept all Jedi artifacts. I suppose in the chaos of war.” He shrugged. “There are those who benefit.”

This was so outside of the weighty reality of how she came to have the lightsaber that Mara let out a laugh and thought she could make a game of it as if she were someone else, as if the lightsaber were some curiosity she’d found just lying about. For a few minutes, at least.

“It _is_ one of my more interesting trinkets.” 

He leaned forward, propping his cheek on his hand, well aware he was too attractive for a place like this. He didn't seem armed or at least he wore no jacket to conceal a blaster. His tunic was fitted, a dumb choice for vanity along with the tight slacks, but not enough that he couldn't hide some of those vicious blades she'd seen earlier. There was the possibility of a blaster at his boot and he did know enough to assume the existence of her holdout, even if he did get the arm wrong.

Or he could be stupid enough to think familiarity with the area and muscle were protection enough. She knew the type.

“You haven’t,” he made a cutting gesture. “Sliced any of your limbs yet? I hear they’re tricky to use.”

Mara wrinkled her nose. This was highly irresponsible of her. “Not that tricky to use.” Feeling a little guilty she added, “Well, I still only turn it on outside and I have some experience with blade work.” She shrugged. “It might be tricky for a beginner. But," she lengthened the pause for emphasis, "maybe I’m not a smuggler at all.”

She threw in a couple of questions of her own mainly to forestall any he might raise. “Are you a vendor? Or one of the artisans here? Pottery maker, painter, basket weaver?” She could reach out with the Force to see what drew a reaction, but opted against it. Felt too much like cheating right now. He didn’t react to any of them in any visible way, and she decided to go for a blunt force method. “Are you good with your hands?”

Mara expected him to respond with some sort of lewd quip that she could savor expeditiously crushing under her heel, but his answering smile took on an aloof tinge. “There is some construction outside the markets. What is the difference between a laborer and an artisan, after all?”

She tilted her head, pleased he wasn’t playing so easily into her hands. These kinds of games were always better with a bit of tension. In this like any other confrontation, jab-block-parry.

“All generalizations, mind you.” What she was saying was not as important as what he might be reading from her words. _If_ he could keep up. “A laborer is concerned with what’s in front of him, the job. An artisan is concerned with the finished product. The ideal. One tends to concrete. One tends to the abstract.”

“Which one do you favor?”

“You tell me.” Mara took another sip of her tea. "Your story."

He regarded her approving, as if _commending_ her, and she thought with spiking irritation that this was the kind of man to be _criminally_ rude to, which was _just_ as she liked it, because there was nothing quite like taking your own pleasure at the expense of others even if in the end...and her thoughts stuttered for a second. She was suddenly too aware of the cracks between who she was and the fiction she’d slid into with all the ease of second skin. It felt flimsy, not as exhilarating as she’d first thought.

But Mara was an old hand at this and shifted the unease away. She wasn’t so foolish or desperate to go seriously gallivanting with some random stranger now -- she had a higher purpose here. She didn't need this.

She didn’t need anything at all, and put her smile back on. She could still kill a few more minutes.

“Laborer,” he said. “Smugglers have little time for ideals.”

Mara nodded slowly. She could do that kind of condescension too. “Very good.”

“And yet, maybe you aren't a smuggler." He raised a hand vaguely in her lightsaber's direction and lounged back. “There’s that trinket. Impractical for a smuggler on a good day. Calls so much attention. Some ideal appeals to you to make up for it-- the authority?”

She threw her head back and laughed. And if she’d been a little younger, a little bit more stupid, and absolutely hopeless, she’d dramatically reduce this stranger’s vocabulary to whatever fake name popped into her head and enjoy making him scream it out until he was hoarse. 

“Right again,” Mara granted. “Whether there is or isn’t any power behind it doesn’t matter. Sometimes the symbol is all you need to keep order.” 

He grinned wolfishly. “Works as a threat.”

She nodded. He was not bad, all things considered. But he hadn’t realized that in giving her leeway to set the terms he’d ensured that the whole game was tilted in her favor. It was a common axiom that the house, the term-setting entity, always had the leading edge.

“So not authority after all. You’re after order.”

Mara kept silent, but took a sip of her tea, raising her eyebrows.

He laughed. “And that right now is a threat.”

She smiled again. 

“I’ll buy you another.” He gestured to the pot of tea.

There he went and ruined it again. “I’m not done with this one.”

“Of course. Everything in its time, right?” He shifted forward. “And if I wanted a demonstration?” he tipped his head in the direction of her lightsaber.

Mara tsk’ed. “I’d say you’re out of luck. Maybe it doesn’t even work. Or...it does, but it’s too dangerous.” She settled on an earnest expression and lowered her eyes, tracing the rim of her tea cup slowly, covertly watching his eyes be drawn to the motion. “And I’m...not that good, you see. I could hurt you,” she added as if an afterthought, raising her eyes, “by mistake.”

He stared at her intensely and that was interesting, was _that_ how desire felt through the Force? With Luke -- she promptly pushed that thought away focusing on the stab of annoyance that it brought up. She was almost done here.

“I’ll be sure to keep,” he said, there was the most attractive pleading note underneath, “a prudent distance.”

She shook her head.

“Have you hurt anyone before?”

She leaned forward. “All the time.” Mara smiled her real smile, the one that made her opponents think twice about the next thing they were going to say. Not because she might not like it, but because she might like it _too much_ , because it'd give her just cause.

He flinched. Mara finished her tea and pushed her chair back. Some men could do with a little more discomfort in their lives.

“Wait.”

She stopped. 

The bravado was back. A brave front, since through the Force she could see his discomfort like a spreading stain. She wasn't actively trying, it was just that it was impossible not to feel it. That, and the pull that came along with it.

“Was that an offer?”

“An offer like there’s an inn just outside the market?” Mara dared. “Or wherever I’m staying at?”

There was a brief pause. “Yes.”

She smiled and turned back, approaching close enough that her legs bumped against his knees. All of his previous ease had vanished. He looked like he thought she would eat him alive and hadn’t decided how to feel about it. Without taking her eyes off him she dug through her satchel and produced a handful of cred coins. She leaned forward almost brushing against him as she dropped them on the table. 

“Buy yourself something to help you cool off instead,” Mara whispered as she straightened up. Adjusting her satchel she turned and left the teahouse, just as the man’s wariness began changing to humiliated anger.

Not criminally rude, but rude enough. 

Mara checked her chrono and continued her walk through the market. It was almost time for lunch.


	8. Chapter 8

The trip back was indeed more of a chore. The younger apprentices groused about leaving so soon while the older ones, while silent, radiated surliness. The volatile atmosphere led to a couple of scuffles that Anse’leya swiftly took care of, but one of those resolutions had Mia end up sitting next to Mara. 

Thankfully, the apprentice was uncommonly silent. That meant a peaceful ride, but the more time passed, the more an entirely counterproductive impulse built up within Mara.

“Kla didn’t mean it,” she found herself saying. “About you being ugly even for a human. Or that you’d never find a lifemate.” And what was worse was that she _kept on_ as if this was _any_ of her business, “You shouldn’t have been obnoxious front of Eevo. And you shouldn’t have tried to punch her in the face when she called you on it.”

“He’s still sitting beside her, isn’t he?” Mia grumbled.

“Not the point.”

“I was just playing. She makes fun of me all the time.” Mia looked away. “She should have been sitting with me and Viya. Eevo is not even ungifted.”

“What does that matter?”

Mia flashed her a look as if it were obvious. “He won’t wait for her.”

“What do you know?” Mara frowned at her. Mia was what? Twelve?

Mia shook her head. “Warriors don’t wait.” It had the ring of a an expression. “We serve. Waiting is what the ungifted do.” She sighed wistfully. “You go and help and when you come back your lifemate is there.”

“Like the families,” Mara murmured.

Mia nodded. “I can’t wait to pass my Trials. Once I’m placed, I’ll find --” She stopped and looked at Mara curiously. “Jedi didn’t have families, right? They didn’t even have their own younglings. That’s odd.”

Mara was getting a little tired of being the resident Jedi apologist, but pushed on, “They thought family made it difficult to sort out obligations.”

Mia laughed uproariously. “That’s silly.”

“Is it?” Mara challenged. “If you had to go fight or stay with your family or kin, wouldn’t it be hard to choose to go fight?”

Mia looked at her skeptically. “You go fight because if you don’t your family might be worse off. Because if you don’t help the village save the crops they are in risk of losing, then your family will have a hard time in your village during spring trade. You help the village which just had a three week blizzard because they helped you last season. Everything is linked, you can’t _not_ help and expect to be okay. Even _initiates_ know that.”

Mara spied a contradiction there, but she wasn’t about to broach it with Mia. A discussion with a twelve year old about the arbitrariness of Zeison Sha concepts of duty and service was not her idea of a good time.

“Family makes you fight _harder_. What’s the point otherwise?” Mara didn’t answer, hoping to avoid encouraging her, but Mia continued. "Elas said you're _sarai_ , but you're too old to be taken in and not a warrior yet.” She frowned as if it were a problem to solve. "Sometimes exceptions can be made and you can write in a lifemate before passing Trials though. Like when someone's sick and can't wait to have younglings." She nudged her through the Force.

Mara broke into laughter. This was Mia being _subtle_. “I don't want a lifemate or a youngling." Mia looked at her as if she'd just said something nonsensical and Mara searched for a way to make it comprehensible. "I don't have time to care for either -- especially not a youngling.”

This time Mia gave her a look as if it were obvious and spoke so slowly Mara was sorely tempted to elbow her. “That’s why younglings stay with the _ungifted_. Maybe they’ll even have the gift and you won’t have to take anyone else's. You could teach your own.”

“We’re not going to take anyone’s younglings,” she snapped. “I don’t think even old Jedi did that. People _wanted_ their children to train.”

Mia waved it off. “We’re taught that the Jedi disrespected the ungifted. It is why they’re no more.”

That was still such an wrongheaded way to interpret things. Mara shook her head. 

“So, really, the best way to correct it would be to get yourself some ungifted,” Mia concluded. “That’s what Jedi Skywalker should do anyway as the head of the Jedi. He's past _his_ Trials and it’d send a good message.” Mia gave Mara an expectant look.

Mara chuckled again in spite of herself at Mia’s phrasing, as if one could simply pick a lifemate out at a depot. The adult complexities of it was probably the reason Luke seemed about as eager to settle down as she was. But in that regard, at least, he was worse off. Mara thought with some sympathy of whoever would be in the unenviable position of balancing all those obligations that came with him. The wife of the Jedi Order. Someone who’d have as much public obligation to that as to him. Awful. 

Mara shrugged and Mia sighed as if Mara were a wayward child. She was tempted to suggest to Mia for her to go and discuss it with Luke herself, but decided this was the kind of thing Mia would _relish_ being encouraged to do, and he was having an awkward enough time dealing with just the Masters as it was. 

Mia looked out the window and Mara followed her gaze. The sky was darkening, but some of the landscape was still visible, not that there was much to look at. Mara could see vague outlines of the mountain ranges in the far distance and before them settlements here and there.

There was some merit for seeking out connections outside all things Jedi, at least. For perspective, if anything. The pickings were so slim among Force sensitives, at least for now, that chances were Luke would probably be forced to find someone who wasn’t. Maybe someone in Organa Solo’s orbit. That would be best. Someone who could keep his feet on the ground.

“I’m going to pass my Trials and be placed in a fun village like Sha Uyal,” Mia was saying. “Then I’m going to find myself the nicest ungifted boy there and when I get called by the Masters to go to serve in other villages, he’ll wait for me with baya bread.” Probably another one of those horrific baked products. Mia sighed and leaned heavily against Mara, her wiry hair slightly ticklish against the side of Mara’s neck. “Doesn’t that sound good?" She giggled a little. "You smell like a pastry kiosk."

Mara made a face and shrugged her away. "Off." Too comfortable. Her own blasted fault for encouraging them. 

Mia giggled again and settled herself against the back of the truck. She was quiet for a bit and when Mara snuck a glance at her, she was asleep.

Her thoughts wandered and Mara could see in her mind’s eye all the families and their greetings, the wave of eagerness and anticipation as they welcomed the apprentices. Mara leaned against the back of the truck, lulled by the vibration of the repulsorlifts, eyes at the groups of apprentices, some talking, most asleep against each other. Mara thought of looking out at the sky, knowing that somewhere out there someone was waiting for you, however many lightyears away. She'd never allowed herself to consider that as possibility. Not for her.

But Mia was right. That did sound pretty great.

\--

The apprentices had roused a good hour or so before their arrival at Sha Kalan, building up to their usual market noise level within a half an hour and then, one of the older apprentices brought out a small set of drums, apparently smuggled, much to Anse’leya’s consternation. After an acrimonious back and forth, pressure from the pre-pubescent and pubescent masses won out and the offending apprentice was allowed the use of the drums, but slapped with refresher and kitchen duties for the coming week. 

That was permission enough for the apprentices to start some very loud singing and clapping to the beat of the drums that while sounding garish at first, slowly became more intelligible as music to Mara. The songs were simple melodies with a few of the apprentices doing the call with a set of verses while most of the apprentices responded with a shorter verse. It was easy enough to pick up the verse, but Mara had enough of being poked at and soundly refused to cooperate when they tried to put her on the spot. Mia was all too happy to sing for her. Obnoxiously loud. 

The effect however was an outpouring of wellbeing that kept Mara afloat even through all the rowdiness, which began to settle as Sha Kalan grew larger in the distance. The positive feelings remained, but there was less of a relaxed atmosphere. By the time they stopped by the walls of the temple, the apprentices were more or less sedate again. 

Anse’leya had them line up for a final headcount and they filed into the temple. The Masters were waiting by the lounging room and the apprentices once again divided themselves into master-apprentice sets. Mara followed the apprentices’ lead, scanning for Luke, his Force presence brightening so much it was _blazing_ when she found him from among the crowd.

“On a scale of one to ten. One being getting Karrde out of the Chimaera, ten being Myrkr, how bad was today’s outing?” he asked with a smile as effusive as she’d ever seen him, sliding a playful arm around her shoulders. She couldn’t figure out why he was in such a good mood, but let it be.

“Definitely a solid eight,” she quipped back. “Right there with the voorcats.”

“Wildlife tried to eat you?” He looked over at the apprentices still seeking out their masters.

“Worse,” she deadpanned. “They overfed me.” That hadn't stopped after the breakfast either. A couple of apprentices found her during lunch and went through the usual trickery, eventually wearing her down. Several more of them were waiting in ambush when they began gathering to depart, some with less evil-looking, but more plentiful smaller candies -- apparently some form of contraband the families were all too content to provide. Anse'leya made quick work of confiscating them, citing lessons in self-restraint and moderation to a chorus of protests. Mara was sure Anse'leya had missed one of Elas' bags though.

Luke laughed and an odd expression came over his face. “That explains it then.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you smell like cake.”

Mara pinched the bridge of her nose with some exasperation, his arm falling away as she moved away to follow the group into the dining hall. She pulled off her headscarf. “So I heard.”

Curiosity flowed from him. “From who?”

“Mia,” Mara waved a hand, “tried to use me as a pillow." She stopped when she spied him failing to hide a grin. “Stop looking at me like that or I’m not going to tell you a damn thing about my day--” 

“No! No!” he protested with a chuckle. “Just not the type of thing I expected when they told me you were all going to the markets today.”

“Apparently.” She took a seat by one of the low tables, noticing that for tonight the apprentices were eating with the Masters. She saw Anse’leya take a spot near Master Skiesk, deep in conversation with him. “The Zeison Sha are very serious about the discblade...and their baked goods and sweets.” She flashed him a look of abject distaste to which he laughed.

"You hated every minute of it," he put in.

"Every _second_."

They went through dinner with Mara describing Sha Uyal and her time with the apprentices. The crowd moved into the lounge room they had used the previous evening and Mara felt a little strange not having the disc with her. It’d been with her every meal for the last two days. She mentioned as much to Luke.

“Maybe,” she mused. “I should have stayed behind. Practiced a bit more.”

“I expected you to,” Luke replied neutrally.

She folded her hands. It felt like there was something behind that he wanted her to uncover. “Oh. Do you think it was a mistake?”

He started to answer then stopped. “What do you feel?”

Mara stopped for a second, drawing her focus inward. She felt...at ease, oddly in place, it was a similar feeling as she’d felt through the temple-wide meditation, though not as overwhelming. It lay under her more immediate perceptions, reachable if she wanted to feel it, but otherwise similar to the sound of running water.

When she let that focus dissipate, Luke was still staring at her, eyes searching, but she couldn’t feel anything intrusive from him. Strange for the kind of intense expression he wore. She wondered if he wasn’t using some new technique himself to read her. 

“It’s not just the discblade I’m learning here, is it?” she attempted. “This trip to Sha Uyal was part of it.”

He shook his head with a smile that approached proud. “Yes.” 

“I feel-- ” She stopped when he shook his head.

“You can put it to words, if you want,” Luke said softly. “But I don’t think you need to, not anymore. You’re more aware of it now.” He paused. “And it’s yours. Completely.” He put his hand over hers. “Of course, I’d want you to share it with me, if you feel like it. But it’s yours,” he repeated, "you can also choose to keep it for yourself.”

She hadn’t even considered that and found that she did want it, whatever this feeling was, for herself. This time. There was a bit of niggling discomfort as if to share this was something she owed him. But her training was hardly over. There’d be other things to share. Even if she kept this for herself, that didn't mean that she couldn’t. It didn’t mean she was alone in it either.

She nodded, feeling oddly choked.

He was looking at her with a soft expression and she looked away, pulling her hand away from under his. It was a weird feeling to be close to crumbling not because there was nothing of you, but because, for once, there was _too much_. 

“You were wrong, you know,” she heard him murmur. “Yesterday you said that you couldn’t learn about the Force from anyone else, but you are.”

Mara still couldn’t look at him much less respond. She cleared her throat after a moment. “What about you? Still working through those histories and philosophy? Nothing practical in sight?” She finally felt settled enough to turn back to him with a smile.

He ducked his head, a bit embarrassed. “Maybe I let my frustration get the better of me.”

She shifted a bit. “What do you mean?”

He bit his lip, thinking. “When I went to learn from C’baoth, I wanted to learn to be a teacher and it felt all wrong, with the Zeison Sha...” A note of awe came into his voice. “They’re really Masters. I don’t agree with some of the way they’ve...structured their Order, some of it doesn’t feel right -- not with how I was trained or the way Jedi serve, but they do serve the Force, they serve their people. And they _can_ in ways I’ve only imagined that we could.”

She nodded. “I kind of ...feel that from Anse’leya. They could do...more.”

“That’s it. And it’s not our place to ask that of them, especially with how the Jedi failed them,” Luke continued. “So you’re right that it’s none of our business, but I wish _I_ could have that depth of knowledge they have. The more they show me, the more they ask me to _listen_ , the further I feel from it. It feels like I’m getting hit with a turbohose of all their teachings. I...I don’t know how much I’m really getting.” He focused on Mara and smiled self deprecatingly. “Sometimes it’s just a struggle to just understand, much less figure out how to make anything applicable.”

Mara frowned. He’d lost her there. “Like what?”

“At the beginning of our time here, I asked them about how to know whether instruction was going well. How to know that you’re guiding a student along the right path.”

“What did they say?”

His eyes sparked with amusement. “You make sure you have a cup.”

She laughed, caught entirely by surprise. “What?” 

Luke laughed too. “I know, exactly. They refused to clarify. Drove me crazy. I came to the answer...well,” he lifted a hand, “I think it’s a starting point, anyway, based on other things they said.”

“So what was it?”

“It has to do with readiness. They had this analogy about asking for tea without a cup, pouring the tea, burning your hands and ruining the mats. It’s not just about having the tool. It’s about having the right tool at the right time. Having the tool, even the right tool, at the wrong time can be, at best, useless, at worst harmful. To make sure you have a cup just means make sure your apprentice is receptive -- that they’re ready to receive the tool.”

“They couldn’t have just said that?” Mara muttered. “It’s not _that_ deep.”

He flashed her a lopsided grin. “Part of it is the work to figure it out. But then you realize that this doesn’t really answer the question. Because how _do_ you know you have a cup? How do you know your apprentice is ready to receive a given lesson?”

“Oh, for goodness sake.”

He chuckled. “And you ask _that_ and they say, things like ‘count the grains of sand in a jar and you’ll know.’”

Mara groaned. “I think I rather be bled out on the mats again.”

“Don’t think I haven't thought that,” he replied with good humor. “Sure, Yoda had his share of cryptic sayings. But he didn’t really expect me to figure them out for the most part, and after or during he’d just have me, oh I don’t know, run around the forest until I felt I was going to pass out. That felt like I was actually _doing_ something other than realizing how little I knew. But that’s what all my time here has been about...just constantly being shown how little I know. With a technique you practice and practice until you have it, with the rest...you’re just never sure.”

“Well, you do sit at the Master’s table, after all," she noted. "I guess this is their way of making you earn it.”

“I don’t know.” He became even more serious. “But I’ve been trying to figure it out. What it means to have mastery -- at least enough to train someone. I...I didn’t do so well with Leia.” He shook his head ruefully. “And she’s my sister. My _twin_.”

Mara couldn’t help the incredulous look that came over her face. “She’s also one of the key members of the Senate and has two children. Twins. You can’t seriously think the fact that she’s not training has anything to do with you. Timing issue.” She paused. “She wasn’t a cup.”

“Maybe.” He flashed her a halfhearted smile. “Maybe not. All I know is that everyone is looking to me to begin amassing Jedi for training, like it's something that will happen in a day. They’re thinking oh there’s a lull in crises, now’s the time.” His voice lowered. “I understand it. I want a new order as much as anyone. More. I just wish sometimes...” he let his voice trail off.

Mara scooted next to him. “That someone else would do it?” she murmured.

He nodded and laughed, the slightly bitter note in it wholly unfamiliar to her. “Someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve felt like that for a while, but now I don’t know...the more real it becomes, the more I realize how little I know about how to go about it...where it really counts...” He closed his eyes briefly. “When I started, I resented being an apprentice -- couldn’t wait to become full Jedi Knight. I had no idea how good I had it. Even,” he waved a hand, "with everything.”

Mara looked out to the fields, not knowing how to respond. What he said sounded unthinkable to her. But that wasn’t what he _meant_ , she intuited. He wasn’t talking about the past at all.

And she really didn’t know what that kind of duty felt like, not with so many eyes on you. Whatever leadership she’d had was always kept carefully under wraps, and even now being Karrde’s second, it didn’t even come close. She wouldn’t want it, she thought with a stab of pity, reminded of her thoughts earlier. Ever. She would rather give up. She had for less.

“You weren’t an apprentice for very long,” Mara observed, just to fill this dreary space with _something_.

“I just wish,” Luke continued slowly as if he were working it out for himself and she thought back to their conversation the previous night. “I could have continued my training when I came back. Master Yoda said there was nothing more he could teach me. That was wrong. I know it. I feel it every time I speak to the Masters here.”

It dawned on her that based on what he’d told her, she’d now been training for longer than he had. Going on two years almost. She blinked quickly. True, he’d probably been more committed to it from start to finish, but it was still a sobering realization considering how long she still felt she had to go.

“Maybe that’s what it’s like,” she found herself saying. “Mastery. At any level. Like a moving target -- a receding goal.”

He chuckled, still with that bitter tinge that seemed so unlike him. “That might be true...and it's depressing.”

“Is it? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” she offered softly. “I’d imagine it’d be dangerous otherwise. If you’re satisfied with just learning how to hotwire a sensor panel, you risk not bothering to learn other ways to bypass a locking mechanism.” 

He laughed. A real laugh this time and she smiled, happy to have at least drawn that. 

“Han would love that analogy.”

She sniffed derisively. “I’m confident I know more ways of boosting vehicles than Solo.”

“Yeah?” He threw her a look that had grating skepticism. “I’d imagine he’d have something to say about that.”

She lifted her chin. “I’d have something to say right back.”

“I’m sure.” The smile stayed on his face. She felt his mood lighten somewhat.

Mara leaned back. “I _hope_ you’re not doubting my talents.”

“I…” Luke’s smile got wider. “I just have no opinion on who’s better at hijacking ships. Han’s my best friend, you know.”

She sighed dramatically. “Why, Skywalker. _I_ come here to this dustball to do menial work around teenagers for you and this is how you repay me? You wound me.” 

The humor vanished, a slightly worried look settling in his face. “You came to Yanibar for me?”

She straightened up, puzzled. “Of course. I wouldn’t even know this planet existed if it weren’t for you and all those datacards you shoved at me.”

“Oh.” A note of caution came into his voice.

Her brows drew together at it. “What?”

“I didn’t want you to feel like you _had_ to.”

“Oh come on now. It’s part of training.” That seemed obvious enough that she rolled her eyes at him, adding some exasperation through the Force for emphasis. “Just like anything else. And based on what you told me about Dagobah,” she added. “I’m very happy it’s not that.”

The tension left him and he grinned. “That’s true. Lucky you.” Then thoughtfully he added, “Maybe we _should_ see about Dagobah. Doesn’t Karrde have some dealings near Sullust? Dagobah's not that far from there.”

She gave him a horrified look. “Never.”

“The Force is unbelievably strong there.”

“So is the smell, from what you’ve told me.”

“Think of how much you’d learn,” he nagged.

“You found snakes in your food!”

“Didn’t taste that bad. That was Yoda’s doing anyway.”

“And in your bedroll!”

He shrugged nonchalantly, but his amusement was clear through the Force. “You just take them out. They’re harmless. Well,” he corrected, pantomiming grabbing at something with his thumb and forefinger. “You have to grab them the right way. I’ll teach you.”

She covered her mouth, but even so, laughed loudly enough that Elas and Frevar looked over from where they were talking to Master Kiandra. Mara would have felt self-conscious, but she...wasn’t. They smiled and she found herself smiling back before sending them a Force shove that toppled both of them over. Master Kiandra shot her a put upon look as if she were any of the other apprentices. It changed to dismay as her students shoved back. Mara was ready though, and they only managed to push her slightly against Luke’s arm. 

Warmth flooded her. She turned her head towards Luke, feeling a bit of her own sense of wellbeing blend with the contentment that had poured from him. She had the impulse to wrest her feelings away, but eased up, letting them weave themselves along with his. At least his despondency had faded, she was grateful for that. He always bounced back so quickly. She could only wish for that kind of resilience.

“This is what I have to deal with,” she muttered, throwing the apprentices a sharp look, and sending Master Kiandra a vaguely apologetic feeling, but she was distracted scolding her own apprentices. “Now I have to figure out what brand of corrective to inflict so they respect their elders.”

“Technically, you aren’t one though,” Luke pointed out, entertained by the exchange. “An elder.”

“You’re not taking my side here?” She gestured to the two of them. “Aren’t _we_ supposed to be Jedi?”

“Ah,” he bopped her nose, ignoring the glare that resulted, “But _I_ sit at the Master’s table.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. “Oh, _now_ you do.”

He chuckled, caught. Neither of them had moved so her shoulder was still against his arm. He leaned slightly against her. “I’m happy I dragged you here,” he murmured.

“I know.” She had the irrational urge to reach out and cup his cheek. Irrational because she knew that gesture had no place here. That was not what this was about, and yet...She stood up, feeling his eyes on her as she did. Already a crowd of apprentices was gathering at the door expecting the bell. 

Mara felt a pull from the Force, a tug at her hair from the apprentices' direction and her hair tie snapped off, fluttering in the air. She reached for it but it spiraled out of her grasp. She concentrated enough to keep it from moving and reached out. 

Luke had stood, plucking it from the air and away from her grasp. 

“Not fast enough.”

She glared at him. “I was supposed to stop him and grab it from you at the same time? That’s not even fair.”

He wagged a finger at her. “Challenges come at you when you least expect them.” He squinted at her suddenly. “Wait, did you cut your hair at Sha Uyal?” 

Mara shook her head. “I bartered a bit of it.”

His eyes widened. “For what?”

She shrugged. “Knick knacks.”

“You traded in your hair for knick knacks?”

“Some of it, why? It’s just hair.”

“No, nothing, it’s just not something I imagined you doing. What kind of knick knacks?”

She ignored the question, grateful to have the clanging of the temple bell as interruption. She extended a hand for the tie.

He smiled cheerily and shook his head. She felt the apprentices’ amusement and turned to shoot all of them a dirty look. She turned back to him. Luke still made no move to give it back.

Mara crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not actually going to keep it.”

“You have more of these.”

Mara pursed her lips. “Okay. Fine.” 

“You’re just going to let me keep it?” Luke waved the hair tie at her with a smirk that was unacceptable in a training context, and she almost laughed. This was an entirely different thing.

She looked at him with affected blankness. “What?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You know, I don’t need the Force at all to know you’re scheming.”

“Why shouldn't you keep it?” She felt his suspicions deepen with her facade of calmness. Excellent. “It’s part of a lesson,” she went on evenly. “And we’re training while we’re here...” she let her voice trail off.

Luke tilted his head. There was a fraction of hesitance as if he knew it was a trap and even so, his voice went low, “And if we weren’t?”

Mara fixed him with an appraising look and lifted her chin a little. Luke was nothing if not extremely careful, and whatever he was feeling lay beyond what she could sense. She didn't mind at all, because wasn’t that something -- he was looking at her as if the whole planet was about to shift its axis on what she would say. 

So she simply turned back, and began walking towards the apprentices. 

“‘Night, Luke,” she called out casually. She was an old hand at this game.

“Go easy on them,” Luke called out, and she didn't need the Force _at all_ to read the raw note of frustration in his voice.

Mara smiled at him over her shoulder, making sure to show all her teeth, then hurried along with the others. 

“Guess you didn't get that hair tie back,” Elas chided as she took her spot in the meditation room. A sudden gust made her half disheveled braid even more of a mess.

Instead of scowling at him she smirked and withdrew the palm-sized bag of the candies he’d managed to sneak by Anse’leya from her robe. She waved it in front of him while he searched his own robe vainly for it, his eyes widening when he finally realized she'd pocketed the bag while he was unaware.

"Guess you don't learn."

"You said you didn't even like them!" he whispered furiously, scanning the room for Anse'leya who was talking to another apprentice at the opposite end.

Mara surreptitiously broke off a tiny piece and ate it. 

"Oh," she said with an easy grin as the last apprentices walked in. "They're not so bad."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! My resolution was to post more complete stuff and I thought just finishing this would begin the year right. So without further ado -- the final parts of Luke and Mara Go to Force Camp with a side of That Doesn't Really Work That Way (to which my answer will forever be LASER SWORDS AND BATHROBES). A special thank you to poor Jaded and celina marniss for having tolerated so much of my whining through the writing of this "three-part" surprise! monster. High fives all around.

The Masters were gone the next morning after temple meditation.

“Makes sense,” Eevo said wrinkling his snout. 

“Master Dal told me that the droughts down south were getting worse. They’re going to make a call.” A human girl, Sula ladled some porridge into her bowl as she told them.

Mara remembered Anse’leya mentioning it while speaking to the Sha Uyal warriors. “What does it mean for the Masters to make a call?”

One of the older apprentices, Pa'ya, the green skinned Twi’lek girl Mara had sat next to during the trip to Sha Uyal, replied, “They pull half of the warriors at distant settlements. The droughts are happening south, so a call means that half of the warriors from the north will have to go down and help.”

“Do they have to answer?”

The apprentices nodded. It was Frevar who weighed in this time. “Things get done faster and better with a warrior.”

Mara thought back to what she knew about droughts. “You mean digging wells, moving water from one place to another, that sort of stuff?”

They nodded. “Also,” a Duros girl, who Mara knew as Viya added, “Warriors keep the peace between settlements, where disagreements might break out. For that it’s always good to make a call and have warriors from elsewhere.”

Mara looked up to see Luke come into the dining hall, his presence bright in her awareness. She sent her greeting his way.

“Oh, so mediation.” Luke had mentioned being called on more than once for that. She listened as Frevar launched into a retelling of a particularly tricky case involving a land dispute and some rather convoluted family drama that wouldn't be out of place in sludgenews. 

The other apprentices hadn’t heard of the case either. In her peripheral awareness she noted how Luke lingered a bit on the doorway. Without the Masters there was just one long table crowded with apprentices. There were still a couple of warriors at Sha Kalan who conducted the group instruction; Mara knew them more through a few remarks the apprentices had made than the introductions that had been made when she and Luke had first arrived. They hadn’t come in yet. 

One of the temple workers went towards Luke with a bowl and utensils while Anse’leya waved him over to the table from where she sat a good five or six apprentices from Mara. The apprentices automatically cleared a spot so he could sit beside Mara, radiating aggressive friendliness, which, this being Luke, he _blasted_ right back at them. They came back with _more_ , until Mara was choking in all the overflow of good will and geniality like a hapless soka fly caught between two slices of sticky cake. None of them had even spoken yet, she despaired. 

Luke’s amusement rippled out towards her as he greeted the apprentices around them, asking for their names as he ladled some porridge into his bowl.

“They were just telling me of some of the warriors’ mediation at villages.” Mara nodded at Frevar who continued his story, the twist in it making everyone snicker.

“Jedi must get asked to do this sort of thing.” Frevar gestured to Luke, his lekku flicking in curiosity.

Luke nodded. “In my experience not as...complicated as all that, but I haven’t really known the beings who asked it of me.”

“Easier that way.” Pa'ya nodded emphatically. 

The warriors walked in, taking their seats on the opposite side of the table near Anse’leya, where the older apprentices clustered. Luke leaned forward to pour himself some water while still in conversation with Frevar and the others when a small box fell from his tunic. Mara stiffened. The puzzle box.

Luke reached for it, but the apprentices had already caught sight of it. One of them, Viya already turned her bulbous head with a quizzical look. “What was that? A jewelry box?”

Mara expected him to say it was nothing. He should have left it in his room. Why would he have ever brought it out?

Instead, he said carefully, “Kind of. But.” He lifted it up and turned it. Mara tamped down on a swell of anxiety. He needed to put that away already. “It has no opening.”

Mara made herself mutter, “Odd.”

He reached out with a vaguely soothing feeling, and she let herself calm somewhat even though she didn’t know where he was going with all this. “But it is a box. And it does have an opening,” Luke continued. “It’s a secret combination, like a safe.”

Sula asked, “How do you know?”

“We have some of these in Tatooine. My aunt used to have a couple. They’re called puzzle boxes.”

Sula stirred her spoon into her bowl. “Do you know how to open it?”

Luke shook his head. “Every box is different. Anyway I found it in my room.” There he looked up, but Mara busied herself reaching for more porridge. He hadn’t _found_ anything. She’d palmed her hair tie last night and switched it for the souvenir, leaving it on the washstand. That was _all_ she’d done, she thought still with some measure of self-congratulation. She hadn't even so much as looked at Luke on the bed.

Okay, one tiny look, but he'd been mostly burrowed under the sheets.

“Maybe it belongs to one of the temple workers," another apprentice was asking.

“But they don’t clean the Masters’ or guests personal quarters,” Sula clarified, not letting Luke get in a word edgewise. “It’s not allowed.” She frowned.

Luke’s expression was inching to concern suddenly. This, he hadn’t seemed to anticipate. “I--”

Another Twi'lek apprentice a few heads over added, “Maybe someone left it before you and Mara got here. I don’t remember who was assigned to cleaning the guest rooms.” The apprentice stood suddenly and clanged his spoon on the glass. “Jedi Skywalker found this in his room!” 

Mara fought the impulse to let her head fall to her palm as the apprentice lifted up the puzzle box. 

Tellingly, Luke was blaring his dismay, caught off guard as the apprentice continued. “Does this belong to anyone?” 

All eyes turned to Luke and the puzzle box. Mara tamped down on a cringe. Somewhere in there Luke had hit some sort of mild panic button, because his sense went hazy, a sign he was shielding more. 

“You found a puzzle box in your room?” Anse’leya came over and Mara had to fight even harder to keep her face impassive. 

A small part of her kind of thought it served him right for trying to needle her in public, but she was already halfway through the problem. He just needed to let Anse’leya have it. She’d track it down and get it back to him. Easy.

Anse’leya reached for the box. “Maybe it belongs to one of the temple workers.”

Luke drew it away. “I don’t think so.”

“I’ll ask Murin.” Anse’leya extended a hand for it.

“You don’t need to,” he replied and Mara’s head snapped towards him, wariness beginning to crawl up her spine. He’d made a mistake; he needed to let it go. She’d get it back.

Alarmingly, he continued, “You can sense emotions, mental states from objects, right?”

Anse’leya looked at him quizzically. “We do not do this.”

“It’s not hard. Bring your focus to bear on the object, but very passively. Give it a shot.”

Mara kept very still, even though the nervousness was making her stomach churn. He wouldn’t make a spectacle of her like that -- even if she had crossed some sort of line. Of them. He wouldn’t. Vague reassurance continued to pour from Luke, but she couldn’t help shifting a bit in place.

The table watched as Anse’leya gingerly took the box and closed her eyes. “I sense nothing,” she said after a moment.

“Sensing affect through objects is different,” Luke explained. “The emotional resonance will never be that strong as when you engage with other beings, you’re listening for a very, very faint echo.”

“Is it always this way?” Anse’leya asked.

“Not always, the more powerful the emotions attached to an object the more distinctly they’ll be able to be sensed, for instance a family heirloom or...” He blinked and reached for the lightsaber at his belt. He unclipped it and offered it to her. “As a comparison.”

Anse’leya looked at it for a moment. Then she carefully put the puzzle box on the table. Sliding both palms under the proffered lightsaber, she lowered her hands to bring it closer to herself.

“Go on,” Luke urged.

Anse’leya closed her eyes a fraction of a moment later she opened them in wonder. 

Luke smiled and nodded. 

She lifted her hands up, giving the blade back. “All lightsabers show ownership that way?”

Luke nodded again. “We’re taught it’s more than a weapon, it’s an extension of our will to protect. You can pass it to the rest of the apprentices so they can see.”

Anse’leya tilted her head. “Are you sure?”

He stretched a hand towards them. “Please.”

Anse’leya flashed the apprentices a warning look and carefully offered the lightsaber from where it lay flat on her palms to the apprentice beside her, waiting until he himself had extended both of his palms. Upon receiving it, the apprentice closed his eyes and Mara felt his sense stretch toward the lightsaber, he opened his eyes and smiled proudly. Then he, too, turned to the apprentice beside him, waited until his counterpart stretched out her palms with respectfully before offering the hilt.

“And I suppose the fact that Jedi construct it also has something to do with it,” one of the older apprentices added as the same pattern of handoff continued under Anse’leya’s watchful eyes. “Mara has told us.” The apprentice looked at Mara. “But you said you didn’t make yours.”

She shook her head. “It used to belong to him.” Mara gestured to Luke. She felt a little bit of a reprieve from the anxiety even though the box was still in the middle of the table.

Luke leaned forward on the table. “Mara has my first lightsaber. The one I trained with.”

There was a chorus of acknowledgements. 

Anse’leya smiled. “We have no similar attachment to the discs, but it is customary to go through our Trials with our Master’s discblade. It is a reminder of their faith in us as we embark on the challenges.”

Mara really hoped Luke wouldn’t go into further detail, but she didn’t know if it was better that he gestured to the puzzle box. “Try the box again, Anse’leya. What is the echo?”

She tensed again as Anse’leya grudgingly peeled herself away from supervising the apprentices and her hands closed around the box. Luke reached out again with reassurance. Mara reached for her glass of water just to have something to do. 

Anse’leya stayed silent for a long moment. “Gratitude,” she said, opening her eyes.

“What else?”

She closed her eyes. “Resolve. An aim.” She paused. “Like your lightsaber in a way. But fainter.”

Luke was smiling. 

Anse’leya’s eyes focused on him. “It’s yours.”

His smile widened and she laughed. “Jedi Skywalker, was this a lesson?”

He ducked his head and reached for the box. “Hardly. Just a...trick and some show and tell.”

“You said you found it,” Eevo questioned. 

“That doesn’t mean that someone else lost it,” Luke replied.

“I don’t understand," The Rodian apprentice's snout twisted. "Did _you_ lose it?”

Luke shook his head, but it was Mara who found herself answering, “Because before he found it,” she told the apprentice. “It didn’t belong to anyone at all.” She expanded, “Like this cup. It’s not really mine -- tomorrow you might drink from it. Or your own robes -- some other apprentice might wear it. Or an object at a store, any number of people might buy it. None of those things belong to anyone. Not the way that,” she pointed at the lightsaber, “belongs to him.” She shrugged. “Or that.” She pointed at the box as if an afterthought.

Anse’leya was nodding.

Luke’s hand lifted to her shoulder and he squeezed lightly. “Thank you.”

Mara still couldn’t figure out why he’d taken the risk bringing the box here. Even if he hadn’t calculated on sitting with the apprentices...Did he mean to bait her _that_ much? Had he been irritated she’d got the hair tie back? None of that was like him.

The conversations resumed around the table, the apprentices asking Luke about Jedi training, or his upbringing on Tatooine. Luckily, Mia was sitting on the opposite end and involved in conversations of her own, so the matter of family never came up save for some mentions of Organa Solo and being a twin, apparently very exotic in Yanibar.

A clang of a bell signaled the end of breakfast and Anse’leya appointed half the apprentices for kitchen duties and the other half for work in the fields, she’d slotted Mara with the latter group and beckoned her over to the doorway to the kitchen. 

“After the group is done in the fields, join the apprentices for group instruction.”

Mara tilted her head. She thought she’d continue just like she had with her and Anse’leya trading off training in self defense and discblade drills.

“This is your last day here. You might appreciate the challenge.”

Anse'leya was just saying that as an excuse out of kindness. Mara's skills with the discblade weren’t enough that she needed any more challenging. Mastery of the main sequences still eluded her even though her control was better than it’d been. Mara had never seen the group instruction though, and she was curious, so she nodded and went back to pick up her plates to hand them to the nearest apprentice on kitchen duty. As she did, she heard Luke call, "Mara?”

She sent out an acknowledgement and passed her plates onto the apprentice. The ones on kitchen duty made their way back, while her group began their trek out as she approached Luke.

“Mara?” one of the apprentices called.

“Go ahead. I’ll be there soon,” she replied. The apprentice nodded and the group walked out of the dining hall. She could hear the conversations from the apprentices in the kitchens and the clink of plates, but the hall itself quiet.

To her surprise Luke brought out the box. “I didn’t mean to alarm you that much. I thought you’d know it would feel mine.”

Now, after everything, she felt foolish for being so worried. The situation would have been fine in whatever case. He wouldn’t have embarrassed her in front of anyone. How could she have ever thought that? 

“It’s okay.”

She sensed a bit of chagrin in his sense, but an overwhelming eagerness. “Teach me how to open it?”

Her eyes widened. Was that why he’d brought it down?

That was it then.

“Like this.” Mara quickly went through the combination of moves sliding out the side pieces, moving the center piece until the box opened, coming apart in her hands. She handed it back.

“It doesn’t have anything in it. You could have waited until later and not put us on the spot like that.” She flashed him a chastising look. 

Mara caught an apologetic feeling about him in response and waved a hand. “It’s fine. I should have given it to you during dinner yesterday.” She frowned at the thought. What was she doing _sneaking_ into his room while they were here? What in space was wrong with her? She rubbed at her forehead, now soundly annoyed with herself. “It was my fault anyway I...got carried away. Inappropriate.” She met his eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no.” Luke reached out towards her, but let his arm drop. “It’s okay. Really. I mean it. I only...” He let his voice trail off as if what he was trying to say eluded him.

Mara switched the subject. There was really nothing to be that curious over. “It’s just a box. You can put spare parts for that,” she nodded towards his prosthetic hand, “in it or something.”

“I didn’t expect anything.” He looked down at the box tracing the sliding pieces with his forefinger. “I just...” He met her eyes again as if there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t grasp it, a brief flash of frustration crossed his face, and he seemed to give up, ending with, “Thank you.”

“It’s just a souvenir. The puzzle part is interesting. I got one for myself.” She shrugged and smiled faintly. “Maybe someday I’ll put a kyber crystal in it.”

Luke's expression cleared at that, and he all out beamed with all of its magnetic pull. “Not to keep it there for long, I’d hope.” 

One of the apprentices emerged from the kitchens with a broom and Mara wrenched herself away. “I have to go.” She gave him a half wave and nodded towards the apprentice as she left the room.

\-- 

After the morning tasks were done, she followed her group to change into their training clothing. Upon arriving at the clearing where group instruction was to take place, the apprentices divided themselves roughly into age groups by themselves. 

Mara stayed off to the side, not quite sure where she’d fit and looked over at the warrior at the head of the group, a human male maybe a decade older than her, sending off her puzzlement. He approached, a pensive expression on his face.

“You’re been working with Anse’leya for the past few days? I’m Jasha.” He looked around. "Where did Anse'leya go?"

"I think Bem'zule wanted to see her," Mara told him. While the Twi’lek had overseen the apprentices get their discblades and go change into training clothes, she had been called to go talk to the temple administrator.

Satisfied, Jasha thought out loud about where to place her. “Lower-level might be suitable,” Jasha finally suggested. “Then based on this we can move you up as instruction progresses, if you like.”

Mara thought back to Bimsha. The Duros apprentice was on the younger end, the equivalent of a human twelve year old, and he'd had no problems taking the disc from another apprentice when she couldn’t just a day ago. “Whatever you think is right.” She’d be doing herself no favors taking on more than she could chew.

Jasha turned to the group and started shouting instructions. The apprentices formed lines with even spaces between each, the older ones at the front. 

The practice began with the basic discblade sequence Anse’leya had taught her. As a group it included more...choreography. Jasha at the head shouted something in their dialect. The apprentices shouted some response back falling into sync as they manipulated the disc, once they’d gotten the disc to the opposite hand, they’d raise it up with a cry, bringing their other hand up, before beginning again. 

That kind of synchronicity was another level of difficulty, each round becoming faster. Mara was very happy to have been placed with the younger apprentices near the back. Just because she was more at ease with the younglings didn’t mean she wanted them to give them a front row seat to how hard it still was for her. 

In her one-on-one instruction, Anse’leya had taken her through two sequences to strengthen her control and levitation of the disc, and had given her pointers on several basic throws. Once the main disc drills were over Jasha gestured for the students to divide themselves into groups to practice those same throws. While they were the same regardless of skill level, Mara felt the older apprentices pulling more on the Force. If she focused she could figure out what they were doing, but it’d be easier and faster to ask. She stopped her disc in midair a few feet from her and looked over at Juryn.

She nodded in the older apprentices' direction. “How are their throws different?” 

Juryn lifted his hand making his disc swerve back to him quickly bringing it to a sudden stop by his hand. 

“Oh, their throws are more precise,” he told her, snapping his wrist to throw the disc. “Faster and stuff.” 

That didn’t really answer her question and she looked over to Elas, his disc moving so fast it was a blur, dust underneath it whirling...

Mara blinked and looked back to Juryn. “The wind underneath and over it. They're moving it while they’re throwing the disc.”

“Yeah,” he said calling the disc back. “Like when you throw up a grappling hook,” he added. “You don’t want it to just be blown away if you get some gust or something. The harder your throw is too, the more you need to control it so it doesn’t do damage.”

Of course. Obvious enough if she thought about it. The discblade was just the vehicle for a the telekinetic skills that the Zeison Sha were known for in the _Chu’unthor_ files. A transferable skill.

A bit more and Jasha called for an end to that practice, catching sight of two younger apprentices he’d just sent out. They were holding two heavy-looking, large buckets that they shouldn’t have been able to carry from the main building.

Behind them, Mara felt Luke near with one of the other warriors. The apprentice’s excitement begin to build. She sent out her puzzlement to those around her.

“We end with a game,” Kla, the Rodian girl, said. 

Luke and the warrior escorting him took a seat off to the side of where the apprentices were gathered, the warrior explaining what was going on.

Jasha began calling names and the apprentices started sectioning themselves into two sides. He gestured for Mara to come sit next to him. 

“Team A will be the puzzle,” Jasha called out as she took her spot on the ground before them.

The group walked off, apprentices forming a circle. Mara looked on as the apprentices reached to grasp the hands with two different beings, noting it was always with someone adjacent to them, never the person beside them. By doing so they were tangling, so quite literally the point was disentangling, creating a circle through stepping over or under the linked arms without letting go. There were more than ten apprentices, so while it didn’t seem impossible, it was certainly not straightforward. 

That said, apprentices were used to mental contact with one another, so perhaps that awareness made it simple.

Jasha said, “Practice round. Five minutes. Go.”

The first one was a complete failure.

“Focus,” Jasha scolded. “Less time bickering more time problem solving. Again.”

The next time, the apprentices solved it in the time allotted. 

“Better. Let’s make it more difficult. Team B.” Jasha gestured to the buckets.

“What are they doing?” Mara asked him watching the apprentices on the second team gather.

“Watch. That’s paint.”

Their aim was to telekinetically lift up bits of bright blue paint, form it into a sphere and lob it at the first team while they continued trying to disentangle themselves. The process was a lot more difficult than it looked, so for maximum efficiency the second group divided itself along lines of skill, younger apprentices were tasked with the initial scooping and shaping of the paint while the older apprentices tossed it. The whole area was filled with yells and screaming, since the paint had the added quality of being ice cold.

“The gestures are unnecessary,” Jasha commented at the flamboyant displays of the group that was doing the tossing. “Show offs.”

The purpose was to disturb the first team’s concentration. The second group was largely successful and the first group, now paint splattered, failed to disentangle in the time given. 

“Let me guess,” Mara began with a chuckle, finding herself surprisingly entertained. “It’s about cooperation and sense?”

Jasha nodded. “Under pressure. This is negligible compared to what they will face when they’re assigned to their village, but the principles are the same.”

Mara looked over at Luke, he had to be finding it interesting, and he was, staring at the group, absorbed. 

“Shameful,” Jasha scolded the younglings. “And in front of a guest too.” He gestured to Luke and the other warrior in the distance. “Is this the best that the Zeison Sha apprentices have to offer? Switch teams.”

He chuckled as the apprentices rearranged themselves. “It is about to get ugly," he told Mara.

Mara smiled. She felt the apprentices become focused. “What of the dark side?" she asked. "If an apprentice gives in to anger?”

“We hope for this. They must learn to manage themselves. Better that they learn here, especially from their peers. Let’s see how it goes now.”

The two teams were huddled together until Jasha called again. “Seven minutes.”

Team B quickly set about linking up through their clasped hands. Team A adopted the same strategy of their counterparts, the younger students forming the spheres and the older ones tossing it. The second team was ready, some apprentices being assigned to block or push the blobs of paint away, while the others moved themselves around tapping off when they needed to move so someone else could defend. 

Someone on the throwing team screamed something out, and suddenly all the paint was being flung in one direction. There was a mad scramble from the entangled team. The yelling reached a crescendo with Jasha bellowing, “Disqualification! Switch teams.”

“Unfair,” Mara heard one of the apprentices shout. “They were just targeting Cenet. He's the youngest one here!” They pointed to a short Twi'lek boy, covered from head to toe in blue paint wearing a crestfallen expression. Even his lekku looked dejected.

“Doesn’t matter, by the time you figured it out he was the only target, it was too late and someone let go. Mindfulness, Team A. A Zeison Sha is always aware. This is an initiate’s lesson!” 

They switched places, grumbling.

Team A did much better, they actually managed to disentangle themselves while keeping a large portion of the paint from hitting them. They cheered wildly after they were done. 

“Much better,” but before Jasha could say any more, several gobs of paint were flung at him and Mara’s direction. Faint warning prickling, Mara rolled herself off to the side as the paint splattering on the ground. She scanned over at Jasha. He was shaking his head, spheres of paint held still before him.

“Not today,” he said to a chorus of disappointed groans. She felt Anse’leya approach with the temple administrator, Bem’zule, and two other warriors. Their concern washed out as Jasha walked briskly towards them, Mara following to the curiosity of the apprentices who had amassed themselves into a crowd behind them.

“What is it?”

“Dust storm,” Anse’leya said without preamble, her lekku curled tightly behind her head.

Jasha turned and scanned the horizon. “When?”

“Uncertain,” Bem’zule answered. She was holding a datapad that had seen better days and turned it in his direction. “Conditions seem to indicate mid-afternoon. It’s a meporax-class, Jasha.”

He said something in their dialect, a curse, she assumed. “When can a Master answer?”

“Not fast enough,” Anse’leya replied. “The situation south is too grave for them to return before tomorrow. We have no choice but to endure until then.”

“Meporax.” Jasha shook his head. “We haven’t seen one of those in a while.”

“Sha Kayal and Sha Kae,” one of the warriors mentioned the settlements nearest to the temple, Sha Kayal being the name of the area immediately around the grounds, “will have to be warned and evacuated. We’ll take the older apprentices.”

Bem’zule nodded. “The temple workers have already opened the lower gates to the shelter below.”

“How much time?” Jasha asked.

Bem'zule’s anxiety spiked. “Three hours. Possibly less. We are expecting an air column as well.”

He paled, but Anse’leya was already pulling the Force to her to address the apprentices. “We have heard of a dust storm approaching.” The happy bustle of the apprentices died down. 

The second warrior began calling out the names of the older apprentices. “We have to make sure that the settlements evacuate properly. Come.” He headed off in the direction of the front gates, a group of a dozen apprentices rushing behind him. Jasha and the two other warriors leading another group at their heels. The warrior who had been beside Luke ran after them.

“The rest of you follow me back to the temple.” Anse’leya continued. “There is much to prepare for our guests.”

“What’s a Meporax?" Mara asked Bem’zule. Off the corner of her eye, she saw Luke approach Anse’leya.

“It’s a dust storm that can last several weeks.” Bem’zule’s lekku were as tightly curled as Anse'leya's. "The kind that carries whirlwinds that can destroy lodgings above ground."

That was alarming, and weeks? She couldn’t stay stranded in Yanibar for weeks. She’d told Karrde one week and this was it.

“It won’t last that long,” Anse’leya said striding over, Luke now beside her. “The Masters will return and dispel it once they arrive.”

“Dispel it?” She felt her eyes widen. “Dispel a dust storm? One that large? They can do that?”

“They’re Masters.” Anse’leya turned heading back to the temple. Bem’zule and the remaining apprentices behind her.

Mara looked over at Luke, still reeling. “Dispel a dust storm? One that can last weeks?”

“With enough concentration. If you’re really familiar with how they work,” His eyes were on the horizon. “Three hours is not a whole lot of time for that kind of evacuation,” he muttered.

“They’ll be fine. Probably done this a million times.” Mara felt a flicker of remorse for having thought of herself first, but the Zeison Sha would be well prepared to deal with this sort of complication. They had to be.

“I guess.” He didn’t sound convinced. “There’s also losing crops. With the drought down south that could cause some...strain.”

It’s just one day, she was tempted to say, but the worry in Luke’s sense silenced her. When they reached the temple, she jogged to catch up with the apprentices who were gathered around Anse’leya.

The Twi’lek was doling out tasks and dividing the apprentices into groups. Some were being sent to the storerooms for the supplies that they’d need to move into the lower levels. Another group of apprentices was sent to the kitchens to help gathering the meals and nonperishable food that would be distributed during the duration of the storm. Another group was tasked with doing a quick cleaning of the lower levels to make sure that they were ready for the incoming guests. Mara joined Viya and Juryin who had been sent to check on generators and power supplies.

As she walked with the apprentices out of the temple towards the storehouse, she noticed that the wind had picked up slightly. Mara found herself hurrying, an ominous feeling making the hairs prick on the back of her neck. Viya opened up the underground enclosure, a space about as big as a room. It housed several generators the size of fuel drums. They began going through the preliminary checks, throwing in the switches to bring them to standby mode. 

Juryn stopped suddenly. Mara had seen it too -- red blinking in the diagnostic panel. 

“Exhaust fan problem,” he muttered. “Gunk. Always happens. Viya get the tool kit.”

The apprentice rummaged along a compartment along the side opposite of the generators, taking out a box of tools. “Scraper?” she called. Juryn called back an acknowledgement.

Mara continued the check with the rest of the generators while the apprentices went through their work. 

“Juryn, Viya, Mara.” All of them felt Mia’s call before she spoke, out of breath from above the enclosure. “Are you done here? Finish up, we need hands over at the temple, the first of our kin from Sha Kayal just came in. Anse’leya says time is short. Latest readings shaved off half an hour!”

“What?” Viya yelled. “ Half an hour?” Fear spread through her sense. “What about Sha Kae?”

“Viya, I need --”

There was too much anxiety welling up in the young apprentice’s sense. Mara darted over and took the tools from her, “Do a final check,” she told her. “I’ll help Juryn finish here.”

“Mia--”

Mara was about to rush her, but Juryn spoke first. “Talk to her later, Viya! Finish the final check!”

“Go,” Mara added to Mia. “We’ll be right there.” She nodded and her face disappeared from the hatch.

Viya seemed to pull herself together and they hurriedly finished the work, and climbed out of the underground enclosure, locking it. Loose tendrils of Mara’s whipped around, and she looked out to a dark sky in the horizon, a greenish tinge to it. Then she was running back to the temple where beings were scrambling in, led by apprentices. The warriors moving among them carried old datapads with lists of names and tasks.

Viya rushed ahead of them to Anse’leya, who was talking to a human male carrying a child. She waited for Anse’leya with barely concealed nervousness. The Twi’lek summoned Frevar, who had been handing out blankets and sent the man with him. 

"You're back. Good. You're done with the generator checks?" Anse'leya asked.

“Yes,” Viya said, her voice sounding too even for her years. Something about it made Mara’s chest tighten. “Anse’leya, how goes the evacuation of Sha Kae?”

Anse’leya drew a breath. “Latest reports have taken an hour from our preparation time. Jasha has decided it is best...they stay.”

“Stay?” Viya whispered, aghast. “They can't. They have no protection.”

“They would be at a greater danger if they were on their way when the storm hits. The shelters--”

“The shelters there are not underground! They won't withstand -- ”

“Viya!” Mia came over and touched her elbow.

“My mother--” She covered her face and turned away.

Anse’leya turned to Mia who nodded even before Anse'leya could speak. “See to her. Juryn, see if Frevar needs help. Mara, how much experience do you have with communications equipment? One of our warriors usually manages them, but he's busy.”

“Some, but I haven’t worked with comms in a while. Luke has though--” To Anse’leya’s confused look, she added, “Skywalker, he’s worked with this sort of equipment more recently than I have. We’ll both take a look, have you seen him?”

Anse’leya shook her head. Bem’zule approached, sorrow in her sense. “Anse’leya, we lost an extra ten minutes,” she said in a low voice. 

“Jasha?”

“If the conditions continue to worsen... They’re already out of our comm range.”

“Let me see what I can do to get you in contact,” Mara interjected. “No promises. Where's the comm room?”

Elas was beside her. “I’ll take her.”

Anse’leya nodded and turned to a warrior who had approached her with a datapad. 

“Have you seen Lu-Jedi Skywalker?” Mara asked as they began their climb up.

Elas shook his head. “No.”

Mara reached out, she should be able to pinpoint vaguely where he was. She sifted through the mass of beings, a cacophony of nervousness, urgency, and worry. Mara could pick out the apprentices among them, more determined than worried. She couldn’t sense Luke though. Maybe she was too distracted.

“Here we are,” Elas said before she could give it another try. He turned to the Rodian temple worker operating the controls. “We’ll take over, Yvet.”

“All right." The Rodian stood from his chair. "I told Bem’zule we lost touch with Sha Kae a couple of minutes ago. If Ser was here...”

“Mara says she can help.”

Mara snapped her attention back, going to the console. She was rusty, but remembered some of what Dankin had showed her about rigging the hardware for a more potent signal. It was roughly applicable even with tech this rudimentary. With a few tricks she was able to optimize the signal. They keyed in various comm codes from Sha Kae, but even with a better signal there was no reply.

“That’s it then,” Elas said in a choked voice. “Trust the Force that they’ll be alright tomorrow.”

Yvet grasped his shoulder. “Jasha and Baeyu and the others are with them. Zeison Sha have lived through worse. Let’s get the transmitters and go down.”

The temple bells began to sound.

The worker grabbed several palm-sized devices. Elas took the rest and gestured for Mara to take the remaining ones. “Those are the first bells.” Yvet pointed outside the windows before starting his descent down the stairs. Mara noticed a dark mass in the horizon. 

“Of course he’s not here,” she muttered.

Elas turned from where he’d been set to go down. “Who’s not here?”

“Luke.”

Elas looked at her quizzically, as he began making his way down.

She sighed her exasperation. “Skywalker,” and followed.

“Where could he be?”

“I don’t know.” That was true, but she had a nagging suspicion about what he was doing. No, not a suspiscion. Not really. 

“He shouldn’t be out there,” Elas’ voice dipped in concern. “If he’s outside when the storm touches down your master--”

“Will be fine,” she finished over the involuntary flinch the title never failed to draw. “He’s hard headed enough to survive being flung around like a wind chime.”

Elas stopped and stared at her. “People die in these storms.”

He reminded her of a younger version of Ghent in that moment and Mara shook her head. “Not him. Keep walking.”

They reached the main temple level and moved swiftly down to the lower level where the beings had been distributed along a wide room. She busied herself helping assemble emergency kits. 

This went on for a while until, unable to stand it any longer, she ran up to the main level, towards the small hangar where the temple housed their ships, and where her and Luke’s rented speeder bikes had been stowed, barely aware of the growing violence of the wind. Luke’s bike was gone. Confirmation gave her a weird feeling at the pit of her stomach. He hadn't said a word.

She lifted her head as Anse’leya approached quickly, her tunic flapping in the sharp gusts. “Elas told us," she spoke over the wind beating across the front of the temple. "No one has seen Jedi Skywalker.”

“He left.” Mara started towards the main building again.

Anse’leya’s brows drew together as she followed her back. “What? Left? Left where? We are almost ready to close the shelter doors,” she said as they reached the temple entrance.

“Went to help probably.” Mara continued on the stairs that led down to the lower levels. 

“Help?”

Mara nodded. She stopped and forced the next words out, “He must have left once he realized we had less time than we thought. He’ll be okay.” She couldn’t tell if if what came over her face was a smile or a grimace.

Several emotions passed through Anse’leya’s face and a phrase tumbled out of her lips in her dialect. Mara didn’t understand it, but one word stood out. _Moten’u_. 

Wasteful.

Mara shook her head. She continued walking down briskly. “He’ll be fine.”

“He shouldn’t have,” Anse’leya murmured behind her. “This is not his calling.”

“He just can’t help himself with this sort of thing.” Mara swallowed. “You can close up.”

Anse’leya’s face twisted. “I’ll let Bem’zule know,” she finally said. With one last look, she walked past Mara into the one of the wings of the lower level that comprised the shelter.

Drawing a deep breath, Mara rejoined the apprentices assembling the kits.


	10. Chapter 10

The lower shelters were roomy enough to accomodate even more beings than the ones currently housed. From a brief glimpse at one of the datapads Anse’leya, Bem’zule, and the warriors carried, Mara knew the general layout was a large central circular room that functioned as a general dining and lounging area; about seven wings or corridors extended out from that central area. Along these were small barrack-style rooms where families could have their privacy. Each wing also had a room set apart for the older apprentices tasked with seeing to the needs of those nearby. Those apprentices also received a transmitter that functioned as a comm within the shelter and a sensor screen projecting readings of the conditions outside.

Mara was assigned a wing like all of the apprentices and even a room for herself, since without the beings from Sha Kae, the shelters were only half full, but she choose to spend her time in the central room, even after the afternoon meal was done. She would have preferred to be alone, but Elas had the transmitter, which she instantly palmed under the guise of just holding it for him as he floated around getting extra water for whoever wandered in. Now that the meal was over and most of the guests had left to their rooms, Mara sat on the floor off on one corner, near hypnotized by the sensor screen, the way the wind speed numbers ticked up. 

She wasn’t thinking of anything though. Her mind was very carefully, very deliberately blank.

“Do you need anything?” Elas asked.

Mara shook her head, not looking up from the display. Catching herself, she lifted the transmitter lightly and grunted, “Need it?”

He sat heavily beside her and sighed tiredly. “No.”

Good. Mara kept looking at the numbers. Several minutes passed and she realized she’d been tense, she exhaled, and leaned back against the wall.

The numbers weren’t that high. Not tornado wind-high. Not to the level of destroying buildings. Not yet anyway.

Unfortunately, even in the controlled blank state she was keeping herself, her mind wandered. She shouldn't have gone to the hangar. She should have gone to the equipment room and done a count of the gas masks, because it would be just like him--

She halted that thought in its tracks, eyes poring over the readings again. The numbers started ticking up with breathless speed.

Mara closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. She reached out with the Force, tentatively sensing her surroundings. The type of calm that had fallen the shelter now seemed the kind of thing brought on by extensive practice and conditioning. She could appreciate that, along with the measured efficiency of how the Zeison Sha worked when they needed to. It’d been so long since she’d seen so much structure outside of a business organization. Some of this structure wouldn’t be a bad model for the Jedi Academy down the line, actually. A pang came on the heels of that thought, and a flash of present awareness.

A scythe of cold, stinging _panic_ \--

She inhaled sharply and opened her eyes. Focused only on the numbers on the display in the transmitter in her hand, so much that it took them a second to mean, and once they did she gasped and slapped Elas' shoulder.

“What?” he barked as she shoved the transmitter at him and dialed herself back down to rationality. 

“Is this thing working right?”

“Yvet checked them before we got to the comm room,” Elas said offhandedly. 

Mara stood, meaning to go look for another transmitter, but wait -- she had other means to test things out.

“What--” Elas stopped as he saw her close her eyes, summoning the Force. Mara turned her focus inward, stabilizing herself in its flow. That done, she spread her awareness wider. She singled out the shelter, the crowd of beings surrounding her, but went past that, ascending to the temple and the grounds outside. 

Everything teemed with the Force. Not the usual passive stream of it underlying all life, this felt like a conscious displacement of it, like a footprint on the sand. Further behind it, bright, even if somehow, vague in her sense, the cause.

Mara opened her eyes and smiled.

Just then Anse’leya, Bem’zule, and a group of apprentices, with other guests walked in, talking excitedly.

“It dissipated?”

“But how, the predictions and estimates--”

“Dispelled.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what it feels like.”

“That’s not exactly what it feels like.”

“Close enough.”

Mara interrupted the back and forth. “How long before we can go out?”

“Depends on the air quality,” Bem’zule replied, her lekku twitching excitedly. “We usually like to give it some time to clear. We’ll send teams out with masks to start making the initial check to see the condition of the temple area. We avoided the worst, but there’s no telling the condition of the airway. We’ll keep those from Sha Kayal here until we get a sense of how safe it is to return home.”

“We should check on Sha Kae,” one of the warriors said. “Through the comms. There’s no telling how the system is doing but--”

“I’ll go,” Mara said, heading to the back of the room where the masks were kept.

\--

The comm system didn’t receive as much damage as they’d anticipated, but they were still unable to make contact with the beings evacuated from Sha Kae. The winds from the storm had left the temple covered with dust and sand, which seemed to have seeped through every crevice and accumulated into piles. The air quality wasn’t great but Mara and Ser, the Duros warrior who’d gone up to work the comm with her, found the masks weren’t necessary.

They were just going down back to the main level when he asked softly, “This was your master’s doing wasn’t it?”

Mara nodded, relief tempering the discomfort the title provoked. “I think so.”

Ser made a sound she guessed stood for a sigh. “To harness such power without being a master...I don’t think I’ve seen such a strong gift before,” he muttered as if to himself as he went on ahead.

She followed him back down with an inward shrug. What Luke could do or couldn’t do through the Force was not something she sat back and stared at for too long unless he himself was prompting her to figure out the hows and whys. Currently, she wondered how long it’d take him to get back.

And she hoped he hadn’t damaged his speeder bike.

Mara reached out. He was still there in the distance, but without the training bond her impressions were too vague. She made a frustrated sound, and caught herself about to thread the bond before she stopped the impulse. 

He was fine. It was just a matter of waiting.

Mara spent the next hours helping the team with their clean up. The hazy skies had gotten dark by the time she pulled back from her tasks for dinner. 

Luke wasn’t back yet. 

She checked her chrono and went back up to the main temple floor. The temperature was dropping.

Why wasn't he back? He couldn’t have gone _that_ far. 

This time she did attempt to thread the training bond, but there was no movement from Luke’s end. _That_ was alarming. She cursed and reached out again, finding him there, but--

“He hasn’t returned,” Elas said behind her, making her jump.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she snapped. “It’s dark and getting colder. I’m going to go look for him. Tell--”

“I’m coming with you.” 

“Dream on.” She started towards the hangar.

“I don’t know how Jedi do it,” Elas countered, following. “But Zeison Sha know the value of many hands.” She didn’t reply, too focused on making it out to argue.

“Is he alive?” 

She flashed him an indignant look, not slowing down. “Yes.”

“In these conditions it’s best to take a speeder. You only have a bike, right?” 

Mara turned her head sharply. Elas grinned and went on ahead. 

“I’m driving,” she called out, jogging after him.

\--

It was a good half an hour drive in misty darkness, barely lit by the speeder’s lights. The airway was littered with debris from the initial phase of the storm, which added an extra complication. Even if limited visibility rarely posed a problem for Force users, it slowed their speeder's progress to a crawl. Their speed was also hampered by their turn away from the main airway. Mara had to grudgingly admit that searching for Luke, even with her Jedi senses, would have been an arduous task alone in this terrain, given having to pilot the speeder and remaining aware of the tricky landscape. Elas played his part beside her as a sort of secondary scanner, his familiarity with the area a great help. So they went, senses strained for some time until at last, she found herself pulled clearly to a particular spot, but off to the distance, past an area too narrow and rocky for the speeder. 

"Below." She stretched through the Force. Luke's presence was unmistakable, if still dampened. She clamped down on an icy chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

"There's a ravine, I think. We're about halfway to Sha Kae," Elas said beside her. "We must walk." He fished out a couple of glowrods and a medkit from a compartment. 

"He's near."

The apprentices' voice was hushed. "I know."

"Any wildlife?"

"Not this close after a storm," Elas said. "We should hurry still." She went on ahead.

It wasn't too far down when they found him in a heap by some rocks. Even as Mara's insides twisted, she managed to spare some gratitude that Luke got the gas mask on. Mara removed it and checked his vitals, did a cursory check for broken bones and wounds. She found only a few scratches, maybe a bump or two, but no indication that he suffered some sort of major head trauma or asphyxiation. She wasn’t sure why he was unconscious, but his skin did feel unnaturally dry, hot to the touch, although not fevered. There was a faint unfamiliar Force aura of something, but she couldn’t decipher it.

That was worrying, but she wasn’t panicking. She didn't panic. She wouldn't. 

Elas came over to her side. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know." Her voice sounded too shrill to her ears. "Something weird about him in the Force. Can you tell?”

She felt Elas draw the Force to him. “Odd, but I don’t know. Haven't seen anything like it. Should we move him?”

“Definitely. Maybe Anse’leya or one of the others knows something. Let’s go back.” With some Force help, they managed to get Luke back into the speeder and she zoomed back to Sha Kalan. Elas kept turning his head back to glance at Luke’s prone figure every so often in a way that set Mara's teeth on edge, but she said nothing.

“He did--”

“Yeah,” she answered tersely, feeling more ambivalent about the fact than she did earlier. “He dispelled it. I think.”

“That’s...difficult. You know how they do it? The Masters?”

She shook her head. She wasn't sure she cared right now.

“The air,” he said, wonder seeping into his voice. “The smallest part of it. You hold it until the dust...falls.” 

Mara couldn’t help thinking back to the voorcats. Fine control.

“I hope he’s alright,” Elas murmured.

“He is,” she bit out.

After they’d returned to the temple, they went back down to the shelters and got Luke into the tiny infirmary there. It was late and most of the people had retired into their rooms, so the whole process was accomplished with minimum fuss.

“They’ll be wondering,” Elas said after they settled him. The apprentice brought her a wet towel and she passed it through Luke’s face. It was possibly the only part of him not covered under a thick layer of dust and sand, but she had no mind for that. Why wasn't he coming out of it? 

“Go let Anse’leya and them know. Get a healer or a medic in here.”

“Is he?”

“Yes, I told you. He’ll be okay,” she snapped impatiently. “Go.”

Elas gave one last look and left her. Mara took a seat in a nearby chair and folded her arms. She tried to touch Luke’s mind and again got nothing. 

Some time later Anse’leya walked in with a warrior and one of the ungifted medics to check Luke over.

“The Masters would be arriving in the morning,” Anse’leya said, apprehension sharp in her sense, once it was clear that no one had any idea what was going on.

Mara nodded. His vitals were normal, no head trauma -- the medic had confirmed it. Luke was fine. It was just a matter of him coming out of whatever that was.

Elas brought her some water bottles and a packet of crackers. She shook her head at his inquisitive glance and he left wordlessly. 

The minutes ticked by, stretching to hours, and while she was too on edge to catch sleep, her thoughts wandered. Mara kept thinking of a couple of days before the Axxila job, the morning after she’d gone to Luke’s cabin. She’d still been slamming into a mental wall; the building was too high, none of the exit routes worked. She’d blasted into the _Karrde's_ galley at some point for caf, Corvis and Ghent melting into the walls as she banged her mug into the dispenser and punched the buttons, muttering to herself, there was something she hadn’t thought of--

“Rough morning?” Luke had chirped.

Mara had seen Corvis’ reflection the caf dispenser. He’d been wincing and was dragging forefinger across the throat with wide eyes for emphasis-- at Luke in warning. She had whirled toward Corvis glaring vibrodaggers and he scurried past her, Ghent behind him.

Luke only looked bewildered. 

She had shoved her datapad at him. “How would you get out of here if you had to?”

“What floor--”

“Observation deck.”

“What’s outside?”

“Several thousand feet and several skylanes. In that order.”

“Could you get a something up there to jump to?”

“Not without the authorities knowing it. Axxila’s security is too tight. Most we could sneak into the city center would be one of those suicidal speeder bikes.” She had rubbed at her forehead. “And we have some, but…”

He’d seemed to consider it for a moment. “Hey, remember when we got Karrde out--”

“I don’t have time for remember when, Skywalker,” she had snarled, grabbing her datapad back. 

“No, hear me out, you jumped into the Falcon when the lift was taking it down and I caught you, remember? With the Force.”

He’d folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the kitchenette nonchalantly except for that stupid grin on his face. “And we have a training bond now, so much easier. Much.”

She had looked at the blueprints and blinked, her eyes sliding back up at him. It was a crazy plan. Also brilliant.

He’d beamed.

“We get to Axxila tomorrow.” Mara was already on her way out. “Ask Lachton to show you the bike.”

She blinked, bringing herself back to the present. Why was she thinking about that now? Before she could give it more thought, Luke coughed weakly. Mara darted from the chair.

“Luke?’

“Water?” he whispered, attempting to sit up. 

Mara grabbed one of the bottles and went to help him. He finished it in quick gulps and she gave him another.

Luke frowned at his surroundings once he was done. “Where am I?” he rasped.

“The infirmary at Sha Kalan. We found you passed out several clicks away. How do you feel?”

He grimaced. “Like someone lit me up.”

“I’m assuming that had to do with whatever dumb idea you had that made you go out into the middle of a dust storm.”

He rubbed at his face. “Probably.”

“What happened?”

“I...I should ask you.”

“I found you face down on the dirt about halfway to Sha Kae. Your Force presence was...weird. You went out to dispel the dust storm, right?”

“It worked?” She felt relief spark in him.

“It did.” Mara didn’t want that to derail from the current situation. “And then what?” she repeated.

“Not completely sure," he answered hoarsely. "Difficult vectoring so much energy. Holding it.” He spread his hands. “The Masters might know more.”

“It’s just like the voorcats,” she fumed at his nonchalance. “At the very least, you could have told me before rushing out.”

“I didn’t want to lose any time.” His voice sounded slightly stronger.

“Did you even know it would work?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t know it wouldn’t.”

She scowled at him again. “You don’t even know what you did to yourself.”

“I’ll be fine after I rest a bit.”

“You don’t have to play it that close, Skywalker, is my point,” she growled.

He was silent for a second, just staring at her. Very tentatively he said, “You threw yourself off a _spacescraper_ last week.”

“Controlled situation,” she shot back unamused, appalled he’d even consider that in the same category. “Worlds apart."

He tilted his head. “So is everyone okay? Last I heard Sha Kae...”

Mara nodded. “We think so. Comms are down, what little we saw, didn’t approach Sha Kae." She let the statement linger, but then added, "Still doesn’t make this one of your smarter ideas."

Luke took on ingratiating tone. “You were worried?”

Mara made a frustrated sound. He could just go shove right off with that. She was _serious_. “I have better things to do than spend my night assuring everyone that you’re too stubborn to get killed by some random dust storm in the middle of nowhere.”

He squinted, a look of confusion on his face.

“We had one of the warriors with a healing background check you, a medic, no one seemed to know what was wrong. They’ll want to know that you’re fine.”

Luke's expression had changed slightly. He was staring at her as if she were holding something behind her back. He seemed to shake himself. 

“I can go talk to them...” He made as if to stand and almost fell. She was beside him in an instant. 

“Back on the cot, Skywalker.” She pushed him back onto it none too gently. “I’ll let them know you’re up. The Masters are returning in a few hours. You can talk to them then.”

He blew out a breath stretching out to clasp her forearm, smiling tiredly. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

She was caught between wanting to pour out her relief and a sudden creeping anger she couldn’t place. It swelled, and she pulled her arm from his grasp. She had almost stopped shielding these last days, and he recoiled slightly, smile fading, so she knew he caught the full brunt of it.

“Don’t be so cavalier about it.” She needed to go and sort it out. The feeling had taken her by surprise too. “I’ll tell Elas you’re up and see if he can get you some food. You should get some rest before the Masters come back.”

His brows knotted. “Mara--”

“Later. Get some rest now.”

“But--”

She gave into her relief for a second and gentled her tone. “Look, I’m glad you’re okay. But we go back tomorrow. I'll probably be drowning in work as it is, last thing I need is to have to shift around schedules if you’re too beat up by this to work. We don't even know what _this_ is.”

He shook his head. “You’re upset.”

Her first impulse was to deny it, bring up her shields and choke it down, because what right did she have to feel any way --

She closed her eyes. That same anger at bottom. Something to manage. Reroute.

“Mara?”

Not hide from herself. Mara inhaled and opened her eyes, feeling the day wear on her. “Yes,” she squeezed out and his eyes widened like he hadn't expected that response. “But I’ve been up since before dawn running around and it’s past midnight. We should both get rest.” This was about as much honesty as she could stand to provide right now. Luke seemed to realize this because he settled. 

“Okay,” he said gently. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“I’ll go call Elas.” Mara let herself out.

\--

After making sure that Luke would get a check in from from one of the apprentices, she went to the room she was assigned and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. 

The temple bells woke her in the morning, the sounds more muted from the underground shelter area. She stumbled out of her room and into the corridor with the rest of the apprentices towards the refreshers at the lower levels. The main temple space needed some cleaning before it could be used comfortably, so meditation was to be held in the central room of the lower level which doubled as the dining hall.

The preparations and worry must have taken their toll on the apprentices. Their usual morning cheer was off, their tiredness taking some of the luster from the conversations, and a strange tension in them. Without them to draw her attention, Mara found herself going over the previous night.

As she dressed and went out to the room with them, she realized the Masters were back. Mara could see their robed figures where they sat at the front, their presence having a lulling, soothing effect. She didn't sense Luke nearby. He was probably still recovering. She'd check on him after breakfast.

The apprentices took their positions and then bit by bit, the guests from Sha Kayal also filed in. There was no incense and the room was a far cry from the one used explicitly for the temple-wide meditation, but once the chanting started, her voice indistinguishable from theirs, it didn’t matter. Mara lost both time and space, her awareness unmoored and free flowing around the room, the temple, and beyond. When the chanting faded, her voice becoming her own again, she felt recentered. The tension within the group of apprentices seemed to have lifted too. It struck her that this would be her last time. The knowledge brought with it a twinge of sadness. She'd miss this.

Slowly, the Zeison Sha stood, the Masters greeting their apprentices and the guests. Mara saw Anse'leya dash out to Master Skiesk to help him up, his movements looking sluggish and pained. He smiled at her and said something, his hand falling to the top her head, a doting expression coming over his face as he leaned against her. Anse'leya gazed at him, expression concerned, but so bright. Mara felt an ache surface similar to that time on the mats when she'd sensed Masters Skiesk's esteem wash over Anse'leya. 

Mara had raged anew over being duped, hated herself for having been taken in so thoroughly, but this feeling hadn't been that. Not completely.

It was that she'd been called precious child once. A lie, but how she'd _felt_ hadn't been. That had been real, a true loss. One she'd never allowed herself to mourn since learning the truth. It didn't matter, she'd told herself, and squashed it down with more anger.

But it did. She swallowed over the lump in her throat, suddenly overwhelmed enough that she turned and stealthily made her way back to her room.

\--

Mara was washing her face when she felt Anse'leya approach her room. She went to open.

"Are you well?" she asked. "We worried when we didn't see you at breakfast."

"I was just about to go over," Mara answered. "I just...I just needed a moment."

Anse’leya placed a hand on her arm. Mara nodded, and stepped out, walking towards the main room. "How are things in the south?" 

The Twi'lek's face broke into a relieved smile. "Good news all around. The situation is finally stable." Her smile faded slightly. "When will you make your way out?” she asked softly.

“I’m not sure. I need to see how Luke is and if the spaceport is open.”

“I believe Jedi Skywalker is resting still. You’re welcome to use our comms and inquire about the spaceport. It’d be a waste of time to head there only to wait.”

She nodded. “I’ll do that then.” 

They'd arrived at the dining area and one of the Masters waved to Anse'leya who excused herself. Mara went to grab some bread and somi paste. Most of the apprentices had headed out to begin the clean up, so Mara finished her food in silence, and went towards the main level stairs.

At the comm room, she greeted Yvet, who departed, giving her some privacy. A quick exchange with the spaceport revealed that it would likely not open until the next morning. Mara sat back and rubbed at her forehead, pinching at the bridge of her nose. That was the problem with backwater planets.

With a shake of her head she sent out a message to Karrde, alerting him about the change in plans. It was a quick transmission and she was surprised to receive one back almost instantly, acknowledging the change in schedule.

“Mara?” There was a soft knock.

She looked up to see Kla at the doorway. “Jedi Skywalker is awake.” The Rodian apprentice's shoulders fell a little. "You’re leaving today?”

Mara shook her head. “We were, but the spaceport won’t open until tomorrow. So tomorrow after breakfast most likely.”

Kla's snout wriggled in what stood for a smile as she went downstairs, Mara behind her. “Oh good. You'll be staying for the gathering we'll have tonight.”

“Gathering?”

“Sha Kayal is here and Jasha and Baeyu will be bringing those from Sha Kae." They continued on to the lower levels. "It's custom for the settlements to come help with clean up and we always have gatherings when the temple is full.”

They had returned to the dining hall, which was buzzing with activity for the midday meal. She sought Luke out and he called her over to where he was sitting with the Masters.

“On our way over we saw that the spaceports were closed.” Master Dal’s Duros red eyes focused on her after she greeted Luke and the rest of the Masters.

“Yes, I just contacted them," Mara said. "We won’t be able to leave until tomorrow morning.”

She sensed Luke’s request to the Masters. He was about to voice it, but Master Skiesk was waving a hand. His voice sounded a bit weaker than she remembered. “You need not ask -- of course you may stay as long as you need."

“Thank you.” Luke bowed his head. “We are very grateful for the Zeison Sha’s continued hospitality.”

Master Skiesk nodded and looked in Mara's direction with a kindly smile. "Leya speaks highly of you. How have you enjoyed your time with the apprentices?"

"It's been interesting," she said, going for politely bland. "I thought being much older than them, they'd be uncomfortable having me there."

The Masters chuckled. 

"My old Master had a saying when I was an apprentice myself," Master Kiandra said. "If you truly want to discipline one of our gifted youglings, you give them their own room. An extra being or a dozen makes no difference to them, regardless of age." She passed a warm look to Mara. "Not the same can be always said the other way around." She nodded to Luke. "It speaks of tolerance, a necessary quality for a gifted." 

He smiled at Mara. "Mara's always been able to maneuver through a variety of social situations with uncommon grace."

Mara ducked her head and tried hard to avoid the smile turning into a snicker. That was one way of putting it. 

A temple worker came up to her and gestured to the Master’s table asking if she’d like a place there. Mara shook her head and excused herself, heading to the apprentice’s tables where Elas and Sula were arguing over what the most destructive meporax class storm was in history. Juryn, Mia, and Bimsha were discussing which team had won the games of the day before. Mara served herself some water and went for some stew at the center of the table.

Viya spoke up from about five apprentices over. “Elas said you found Jedi Skywalker near death.”

Mara was about to correct that when Elas shouted, “I did not! I said he was unconscious!”

“He dispelled the dust storm, right?”

The table erupted into heated exchanges. Where was Anse’leya? Mara looked over to the Master’s table to see her helping Master Skiesk sit down after standing to greet what seemed like a high ranking guest. His movements carried a surprising lethargy, certainly more so than before he had departed just a day ago. Had she simply not noticed before? Turning her thoughts elsewhere, Mara wondered how the Masters had reacted at the news that it'd been Luke who'd saved the settlements. She'd felt more ease between them, but she hadn't stayed long enough to get a good read.

She turned back to the table. The whirlwind of conversation was such that she’d been momentarily forgotten. She could just let it all continue and melt into the woodwork, but Frevar turned around and said, “Well?”

For a second, Mara just took them all in, the many faces of the apprentices staring at her expectantly. She’d meant to fade into the background as she always did, but somehow these provincial, overly familiar younglings never _let_ her. Somehow in all that, Jedi apprentice had stopped being just another role she was playing. 

“He did,” she said, and found herself continuing. “He was worried about Sha Kae.”

Surprise spread through the crowd. 

“He got hurt, didn’t he?” Sula asked.

Mara shook her head. “Nothing serious.”

“It could have been.” Elas' concern flowed out mixing with the apprentices' confusion. “Why would he risk himself? He has no obligation to us.”

Mara tilted her head. “So we’d eat at your table, stay in your temple, learn from you, and sit back while you suffer knowing we could help?”

Elas shook his head firmly. “You and Jedi Skywalker are our guests, not Zeison Sha. You have no call.”

“We're not,” she agreed. “We're not Zeison Sha. We don’t have a clan, we don’t have initiates, or even a temple. But we do have a call -- to answer where we’re needed, regardless of whether those who need us are kin or not.” She smiled at them, an odd poignancy welling up. “And even if you don’t consider Jedi your kin after what happened so long ago, we do.” She jutted her chin out a little, “I would have gone out there too if I could have. It's what it means to be a Jedi.”

She let the words linger and when no one countered, Mara turned to her left. “Pass me some of that jam, Bimsha?” 

\--

Anse’leya had told her that she could use the day to rest in preparation of her trip back if she wished -- the temple might be in need of cleaning, but most of the guests from Sha Kayal save families with young children had stayed in order to help as was customary. Formal instruction too had been halted until Sha Kalan was in working order again.

While Mara appreciated the option, she had to admit it wasn't all that appealing. The week had eased her into the daily tasks at the temple, sitting alone in her room, looking at her signal-less datapad, counting down until dinner hardly seemed pleasant. She decided to join one of the apprentice groups cleaning one of the sections of the temple's large courtyard instead, listening in as they talked about previous gatherings. 

Privately, a temple hardly seemed the place for a fun party, but then again she never had much exposure to that sort of thing. All her experience with festivities had been limited to the formal court functions of the past or these days, largely informal cantina crawls for one of her crew’s name days. Perhaps the apprentices by now had some inkling of her familiarity with the latter, they kept assuring her there’d be liquor -- some alcoholic beverage called _eksa_ , which though none of them were of age to try, was apparently wonderful.

It was after the midday meal when Mara was planning to go out with another group to check on the current state and power supply of the generators that it occurred to her that in all the day’s activity she’d forgotten about Luke’s speeder bike.

She excused herself and headed back to the main temple searching out for Anse’leya to ask about borrowing one of the temple speeders. As she entered the temple, she felt Luke’s call through the Force.

Part of her felt some guilt for her reaction the previous night, but she’d given it enough thought, gave the feeling enough space that she could parse it if need be.

That didn’t mean she wouldn’t prefer to leave it well enough alone though.

With a sigh, Mara followed the call out to the temple hangar, a group of apprentices and temple guests sweeping the area.

She found Luke sitting on the ground beside a speeder bike, a bevy of tools scattered around him, head half in the engine housing as he worked in a torque wrench. The bike's condition was bad enough to draw a grimace from her.

“The filters seem have gotten the brunt of it.” Luke's voice was muffled, face hidden away by the frame. And some...” he grunted a little as he pulled the wrench. “Tightening of the stabilizers. The ‘lifts are okay though.”

Mara crouched beside him for a look. Luke shifted out of the engine housing and let her peer in. 

He was right, the repulsorlifts didn’t seem worse for wear. “What about the sensor array? All that dust probably fried the circuits.”

He grinned at her, streak of black across his cheek as if he were just another tech, not the Jedi responsible for averting mass tragedy. “All you core worlders with no imagination.” He reached across to hit an access panel and she leaned forward for a look.

“They souped it up with a cover?” Mara drew closer, eyes widening. “How does that not interfere with the wiring...the connectors to the power cell are right -- “ She jerked her head out and extended a hand. “You have a light stick?”

Luke handed her one, and she gently sifted through the wires. “What is this material anyway?”

“I’m not sure. Some alloy they work with in-planet probably -- we had stuff like that back home. I’ll ask in a bit.” 

Mara tore herself away from the engine housing. “Does the bike work?”

He shook his head sadly. “If I had more time...but the filters need heavy cleaning. I used their turbo hose, but I still don’t think she can go too far. I’ll cover the damage with the company once we’re at at the spaceport. Speaking of which, what’d Karrde say?”

“He’s fine with it. Transmission said they knew about the storm. I was thinking we leave after breakfast.”

“Sounds good.” Luke paused. “Are you still upset?”

Mara bit her lip and sat down beside him. The group that was cleaning had moved off to the other side of the hangar involved in their own conversations. 

She’d thought about this since this morning, this _right_ to feel like she should at least know of whatever idiotic thing he was up to beforehand. Mara steeled herself with a breath, narrowly avoiding twisting her hands in her lap. 

“The kind of apprenticeship I have with you -- it’s never been like the ones you had with your old masters, right? Even from the beginning,” she ventured hesitantly. 

His eyes searched hers, expression both curious and wary. “It hasn’t.”

Mara nodded. This was the hard part. “They could do all sort of things without letting you know.” She turned her head seeing the second he caught on and it became leagues easier. “Yeah. Don’t do that.” 

Luke seemed to digest it for a second. “Not about playing it close then.”

She narrowed her eyes a little. “You do play it close.”

The corner of his lip twitched. “You do too.”

Mara shook her head at him, mildly exasperated. She didn't know why he kept pushing that angle, but that wasn't even close to the point. “No, it’s not about that. Just...let me know before going off in some fool escapade. That’s all.” 

More than anything, she wanted to stand up and leave it at that, but this _mattered_. She could and she would argue for this; she was armed with a list of logical reasons to any pushback.

But she didn’t want to fight for something she was owed.

It would change things.

He nodded slowly. Behind it, his Force presence radiated reassurance, and that brightness that she'd associated with him being pleased about something. Neutral she’d expected, happy to owe her this caught her off guard. Maybe she was misreading.

“Okay,” he murmured. "I will." That made his assent clear, at least. 

Mara sighed softly, tension leaving her. Up to now, she hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted it. How much she’d wanted things not to change.

For some moments they sat in easy silence, watching as the group sweeping the hangar finished.

“What did the Masters say?”

“About yesterday? Some kind of burn out apparently. Pulling too much of the Force, too clumsily. It’s not supposed to be easy, but Masters, I was told, routinely walk away after successfully dispelling a storm.” Mara sensed some faint embarrassment, but Luke grinned. “They don’t end up having to be hauled back by their apprentice.”

She laughed. “That’s all the thanks you get for dispelling the storm? I was wondering how they'd react.”

“This was what they said _after_ they said they gave their thanks. Teaching opportunity, I suppose.”

“Charming as always.”

“I think they would call it ‘instructive’.”

“If it’s admiration you’re looking for you could swing by the apprentices table. I’m sure they’re dying to hear all about it from the bantha’s mouth.”

“One of the apprentices was there. The boy that came with you -- a human boy, Elas?”

Mara nodded. “He's telling the story all right. The tale gets more dramatic every time he tells it. You were near death in the last version. By now he's probably he’s telling someone you did die, but at the last minute the Force decided that you should live for your sacrifice in service of Sha Kae.”

“That _is_ dramatic,” Luke said dryly.

“Apparently they’re having some sort of party tonight.” She smirked, knowing how much he disliked being fawned over. “Expect to get asked all about it there. Repeatedly.”

Dismay seeped out of him. “Really?”

“They call it a 'gathering’. No one told you?”

“Yeah, I think some Masters mentioned it in passing. I was catching up with them all morning about Force techniques, then I went to get the bike and have been working on it...I didn't think about it. Just thought it all the prep was routine clean up after the storm.”

“Some of it is, but I guess since everyone's here already, might as well open the grounds. The apprentices haven’t stopped blathering about it.”

He considered it and smiled cheerfully. “Well, that part sounds fun.”

Mara wrinkled her nose slightly with her best inner rim pretension. “If you’re Outer Rim scruff maybe.”

“You’ve certainly spent enough time there to qualify." He threw her a knowing look. 

She affected some huffiness. “The Core is more of a mental state, Skywalker. An appreciation for the finer things.”

“Assorted weaponry,” Luke deadpanned fluidly. “Fast ships.”

She drew her brows together. “That’s just my job.” 

“Yes, but you _really_ like your job.” He scooted close. “Too much for a core world upper cruster, if you ask me.”

“No one’s asking you anything.” But his words had the ring of a challenge, so she closed the distance so that their shoulders were almost touching. 

“Careful." He smirked at her. "I’m all dirty.”

“Oh,” Mara flipped her braid over her shoulder with a half smile. “Who’s scared of a little engine lubricant?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Some high class Coruscanti probably.”

She reached over, bringing her index and middle finger to the streak of engine lubricant on his cheek and carelessly smeared it down to his jaw. “Don’t see any. Do you?”

He chuckled, leaning ever so slightly towards her.

Mara stayed still for one breathless second, her heartbeat right in her throat, wondering what he'd do.

Wondering what _she'd_ do.

She sensed one of the older apprentices approach. “Jedi Skywalker?” Sula called from the opposite end of the hangar.

Both of them shifted away immediately. She smiled furtively at Luke, catching a flicker of annoyance before it cleared to his usual composure. 

“Yes...Sula?” 

The human apprentice nodded with a pleased smile. “The temple administrator would like to see you if you’re free.”

“I’d rather have some time to get all this off first.” He spread his palms self consciously and stood up, going for a towel to wipe his hands. “Did she say right now?”

“She mentioned whenever you have time. She’ll be in the comm room for the next couple of hours.”

“I’ll be there soon.” He reached for another towel and handed it to Mara.

She smiled, waving it off, and wiped her fingers on the knee of her pants.

Luke shook his head at her, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Sloppy," he chided.

She shrugged, feeling the reluctance with which he pulled himself away, belying it with a casual "I'll see you both at dinner then," before exiting the hangar.

Sula moved to the other side of the space. "Mara," she called out. "Did you see the hydromop here?"

Mara shook her head. "I saw a team leave, but they didn't have one."

She stood up, momentarily lost in thought as Sula did her search through various locked closets.

Had that been excessive? It made her uneasy that she really didn't know. Sure, all their time at Yanibar broadly qualified as training, but they hadn't pulled up the training bond in days. Perhaps that was what was confusing about the whole thing. For how structured things were at Sha Kalan, everything was also so integrated, from instruction to temple work. As soon as she returned to the _Karrde_ , Mara comforted herself, it'd be easy to sort spaces out and get her focus back. 

She _needed _her focus. That was what had been missing from that dizzying encounter at the bay. The knowledge flowered within her like something she'd known, but never named: This between them was a trust exercise. If Luke was going to place himself at her hands, then the least she could do was to be an unmovable object, the wall he could dash himself against. Someone to dictate terms and provide _structure_.__

She felt a brief stab of pity, similar to what she'd felt on the ride back from Sha Uyal. Someday when things were stable, when his future wasn't as unformed, he wouldn't need this. Or down the line someone would answer to it _and_ everything else, but for now there was only her.

“I thought you were with Eevo and them going through the power generator checks,” Sula spoke up, hydromop in hand. 

“I was,” Mara replied as the apprentice approached. “Then I realized we were missing one of the bikes we rented. I was going to get it. But he beat me to it.”

Sula seemed to notice the speeder bike for the first time and made a face. “It’s in terrible shape.”

Mara nodded. “Yeah, there’s not much we can do between today and tomorrow. We’ll just have to turn it in and cover the cost.” 

Sula’s eyes goggled. “Cover the cost of a speeder just like that?”

For a second Mara thought of the two skiprays she and Luke totaled at Myrkr, and the Z-95 that had almost taken her with it if Luke hadn't found her.

“This happens more than you might think." Grounding herself back in the present, she checked her chrono and then glanced at Sula inquiringly. "Eevo and them must be done by now though. Do you need a hand?”


	11. Chapter 11

By the time the afternoon cleaning was done and recess started in shifts for both guests and the usual temple populace, the beings from Sha Kae began arriving. When Mara’s group emerged from the 'freshers to help with the set up for the dinner spread, the temple courtyard was so crowded you could hardly walk.

Apprentices did their tasks as quickly as possible so they could go off to mingle with their kin. Mara would have retreated to a quiet spot to watch the excitement, but she’d no longer moved the dishes handed to her up to the tables and cleaned off her plate than Viya was whisking her off, dragging her, really, to introduce her to her mother. Anse’leya broke in to take her over to two ungifted kin to talk comm unit specs next, which was normal enough. That is, until Mia interrupted that to haul her over to some distant ungifted cousin, and arbitrated a bizarre conversation about her time in Yanibar that stopped being bizarre and started being dismaying once Mara started suspecting the apprentice was setting her up. She disengaged herself from that rancor’s nest, but was cornered by Bimsha to corroborate his _completely unbiased_ account of Team A’s triumphant win and his own indispensability to it to several of his ungifted friends. Extricating herself as gracefully as she could, she turned away, and almost bolted when she heard Elas calling her name, but the crowd was too thick. He caught up quickly and pressed a cup into her hands.

“Eksa,” he said.

“Oh thank goodness.” She gave it an unthinking chug and promptly choked, not expecting something so strong and foul tasting. 

“What the hell is in this?” she said between coughs.

He grinned as he patted her back. “Sallet.”

“It tastes like engine exhaust.” Mara offered it back.

He scowled at her. “You can’t judge it based on one sip. It gets better the more you have of it.”

“Because you get _drunk_ ,” she pointed out. “And what would you know? You're not old enough to drink.”

He shrugged. “Baeyu told me.”

She forced herself to take another swig. “Awful.”

Elas reached for a it with a sigh of exasperation. 

She pulled it away. “Is this the only alcohol you have here?”

“We make it here. Why would we go and buy anything else?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Because paint thinner might taste better.”

“Give it back then.”

“No." She waved him off. "Scram.”

He laughed and disappeared into the crowd. Mara took another swig, more used to the burn all the way down her throat. She had just gotten five paces away from the densely packed courtyard intending to nurse her drink in some unobtrusive corner, when Luke materialized by her shoulder, holding a cup like hers. She looked at it pointedly, receiving a overly dramatic look of misery in return. 

“No potted plants nearby?” She feigned a searching look around the packed courtyard.

He replied with a resigned, “We respect all life, Mara.”

“Have you tasted this? It’s either us or them.”

“Point. Tell me if you find one.”

She was mid-laugh when Master Dal approached. “Sha Kae’s Elder Council wants to meet the Jedi.”

Mara stepped back. “I’ll --”

The Master gave an acknowledging nod in her direction. “And his apprentice.”

That signaled the beginning of another mass of introductions to Sha Kae's Elder’s Council, the ruling body of Sha Kae, and that of Sha Kayal, then various highly ranked beings. The Zeison Sha's ungifted leadership was vastly less standoffish than the Masters. Mara didn't know if it was how they were usually or if it was due to Luke's intervention with the storm. 

“And your plans for an institution -- do you seek to refashion the Jedi Temple of old?” One of the elders asked after the pleasantries were over.

“Not for the moment," Luke answered. "I can only go by my experience, and a location free of distractions strikes me as more appropriate. Perhaps in the future.”

The elder looked at him quizzically. “A location only for Jedi and their apprentices?”

“This is a sensitive time for us. The media attention alone if I made the Coruscant the seat of the academy would cause difficulties for apprentices just coming to terms with their Force sensitivity, not to mention the actual training.”

They hadn’t broached the Academy directly since Coruscant, hearing it invoked so explicitly was shocking. Mara took a sip of her drink, letting the fire at the throat draw her away from her sudden burst of anxiety.

“Is this something you look forward to?” the elder turned to Mara. “A separate space to hone your Jedi skills?”

Her stomach twisted. “No,” she admitted finally. “I’ve never been one to like being outside the action...distracting as it might be.”

The elder looked at her curiously.

“The Jedi Academy is still subject to bureaucratic wrangling,” Luke added. “While that part gets sorted out between politicians and functionaries, Mara’s training progresses.”

Understanding flashed in the elder’s face. “Of course, certain things should be priorities given the current situation.”

Luke nodded, smiling. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she finished her training before the Jedi Academy formally opens its doors. She's an exceptionally quick study.” He looked at her in such an openly proud way that she had to look away. 

"He exaggerates." She took a long, scalding sip of her drink, itching even more to make her exit.

Luke's hand reached up to clasp her shoulder. “Mara’s very modest, but it’s true nonetheless. I can only hope that other apprentices in the future have the depth of her commitment,” he put on of those enigmatic Jedi smiles she decided right then and there she _despised_. She made a mental note to let him know later, “and her serious mind.”

Mara went for another swig, but her cup was already empty. Blast it. She briefly fantasized about reaching over and grabbing Luke's. 

Luckily, she spied Mia heading in her direction. The wave of relief almost staggered her.

Mia gave her a weird look at sensing her effusive gratitude, but made her apologies to both the elder and Luke before yanking Mara away to help her and the apprentices ready an area a few meters from the courtyard. A bonfire had been set up in a corner. 

They settled off in the middle of the blankets, Frevar showing up with another cup of eksa in hand that he swiftly handed to Mara as the bunch of apprentices and some ungifted younglings gathered all around. Half a cup later she could forget she was more than a decade older than them. She told an inoffensive smuggling story or two, and complained about how annoying Force sensitive pets could be, not quite figuring out why the apprentices stared with amusingly wide, horrified eyes.

The bonfire seemed brighter as Mara drank, letting herself be drawn in by the chatter around her. An ungifted youngling brought over and passed around a basket of warm sticky cakes that emptied out in the blink of an eye, one of them ending up in her hands. Probably all over her face too. She couldn't summon the will to care.

Floating on well-being, she could confess to Elas several apprentices away that eksa _did_ get better the more you drank...to have him accuse her of being drunk already. She proved she wasn’t by Force ripping his pastry from his hands and holding it a solid three meters above his head to raucous laughter. He had to try twice before he could pluck it from her hold.

Some time later, a few apprentices rolled out with what she first thought was a barrel, but as they set up a stand for it a few feet from the crowd, Mara realized it was a mid-size drum. They came back with more, setting them up to the cheers and calls of the apprentices around her.

Anse’leya dropped on the blanket next to her, a cup of eksa in her own hand. She pointed to Mara’s. “Good, isn’t it?”

A weird half-giggle escaped Mara. “No, it’s awful.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve drummed before?” Anse'leya's lekku shifted minutely in curiosity.

“What? No.”

Anse’leya chuckled and drained her cup, passing it to another apprentice with a request for more. 

"Come, then." At Mara's waved hand, she came back with, "Shy?"

Mara snorted and suddenly the apprentices began pressing excitedly. Annoyingly. 

“This is your last night here," Anse'leya cajoled. "It’s not that different from threshing.”

The apprentices' cries built up to a fevered pitch. Their prods through the Force were even worse.

"Fine." Mara rolled her eyes. "All of you shut up." She wiped her hands on her pants, her face on her tunic sleeves, hoping she got the most of the sugar off, then drained her own cup and passed it to Bimsha. She reluctantly let Anse'leya pull her along to the front of the blankets by the drums. Someone handed them two wooden sticks roughly the size of a stun batton, maybe two to three inches thick. 

Anse’leya nodded for her to go to one of the drums. She took the other, standing slightly off to the side and adopted a wide, low stance with her legs, the left knee bent over the toes, keeping the right leg straight.

Mara caught on through the mental contact. It was form, just like anything, just like everything. She relaxed her shoulders and mimicked Anse’leya’s stance. 

Anse’leya paused, frozen for a second. Her hips twisted, her right arm swung and hit the center of the drum, the _don_ of impact reverberating through the air. She went for another strike, this one involving a quick, swing from her left and another with her other hand, _don, don_. 

Anse’leya reached out through the Force. It was Mara’s turn.

Mara could imitate easily enough. Anse’leya went again, her strikes off center this time, softer. She finished with a couple of taps to the side of the drum. Mara copied it, and the apprentices clapped.

Anse’leya complicated the rhythm more the third time around, interspersing soft strikes with the harder central hits and sharp taps. So it went, Anse’leya sending off her own encouragement, it mingling with that of the apprentices. By the fifth or sixth go round, Mara gathered enough confidence to end with a short improvised flourish of her own to the cheers of the apprentices. 

The pattern continued, Anse'leya challenging and Mara answering, the apprentices laughing at the improvisations, the beats growing more complex. There was something about the strike of her arm, its line familiar and not, the resonant boom of the drum that lifted up among the courtyard area and the swell of voices in response. It was silly, stupid, and utterly satisfying. Mara hadn’t ever done anything like it, but she was smiling so hard her face hurt. 

She couldn't help it; her eyes searched for Luke in the distance at the Masters’ table, not really expecting him to look over to the revelry, but he was. He was looking straight at her and his smile made her miss the beat. 

The apprentices boo’ed, and Mara threw her head back and laughed hard, even as she conceded to Anse’leya with a rapid fire pattern of her own, ending with an excessively ornamental twirl of the sticks. She walked back with Anse’leya to a wave of applause and cheers, washed it down with a yell for them to be quiet and another gulp of eksa that someone put in her hands. Mara took her spot with the other apprentices on the blankets while the apprentices who really knew what they were doing began to play. 

The first songs were all rhythm and frantic beats that the apprentices were content to listen to, but soon enough their voices raised up calling the hits in a flurry of _don-don-kara-kara-don_. The apprentices followed the beats with verses and choruses turning them into songs. Variations, Mara realized, of what they sang on their way back from Sha Uyal, all simple enough that she could sing along too.

She was drowsy and warm even in the evening chill, probably because Juryn and another apprentice were leaning heavily against her. Normally she’d push them off or she would move away, but here it was the most natural thing to just sit and soak in the atmosphere. Her feelings interwove themselves with that of the apprentices as she sang with them, the beats becoming a kind of shared heartbeat, another manifestation of the flow of the Force that linked them all. Even her, and there was that heaviness inside her -- that feeling that whatever held her together couldn’t keep her. She was so much more.

If she’d been born in a place like this, Mara dared to think, if she’d come to a place like this maybe... She looked at the apprentices, to where Anse’leya laughed, lifting her cup across the clearing to Baeyu and the other warriors with eksa in hand, to where Mia was licking off sugar from her fingers, to where Bimsha was following the beats with his long fingered hands, drumming them on his knees... If Mara concentrated just a tiny bit, she could distinguish the Master’s indulgent good humor, their fondness for their apprentices ruffling out like a warm wind, from among the apprentices’ own effervescence... 

Even in as rustic place as this, in this nowhere planet... maybe it could have been different. 

_She_ could have been different.

But maybe she already was, somehow.

Mara closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the bonfire and torches had gone out, the drums were gone, and she was sprawled on the blanket, the other apprentices huddled around her, sound asleep. The courtyard was empty, long cleaned up by the temple staff. 

She scowled at the apprentices snoring away. They might be fine spending what was left of the night outside, but she was too old for that, slept too many times in the dirt herself out of necessity to see the appeal of doing it by choice. The difficulty she had standing made her aware that she was not sober. At all.

Sheer determination helped Mara stumble her way into the bathhouse. She splashed water on her face, trying to blink away the sheen that the liquor had added to everything. Briefly, she looked at the pools wistfully, but in her current state, it was an invitation for tragedy. She walked towards the temple, proud of only tripping over her feet twice. Walking was much easier inside the temple where she could put a hand on the wall for support. 

The larger problem was that she couldn’t remember where the apprentices’ quarters were. She sighed and blinked again. With a mental shrug she leaned back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. It wasn't the most uncomfortable spot she’d slept in and she'd probably be sober by the time she woke up. It was better than the dirt...

“Mara?”

Luke's voice. She blinked awake, realizing there was warmth at her cheek. “Mara.” 

Luke’s hand. Unthinkingly, she reached up to cover it with hers as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. He pulled it away quickly.

Mara was expecting it to be light out and was confused when it wasn’t. She sluggishly tried to piece where she was. 

“Got lost.” She winced at the thick way the words rolled off her tongue. She was definitely not sober yet.

The amusement in Luke’s tone, in his sense told her it was obvious. “I figured as much.” He helped her up, no mean feat since she almost took him down with her. This earned her a “Can you walk?”

“Yeah.” She placed her palm on the wall and gestured for him to go ahead. 

He didn’t, choosing to stay beside her. She wanted to insist he go on, but apparently the thinking and walking together were too difficult. Even with a palm flat against the wall, she tripped. His hand shot out, stabilizing her by her elbow, which was mortifying enough even as drunk as she was, more so when he kept it there the entire way back. She really wanted to say something to shoo him off, but wanted to remain upright more, so that was where her concentration ended.

Finally at the apprentice’s room, she almost threw herself on the empty pallet beside her bag in an ungainly heap, still noticing that there was hardly anyone there. Of course. Most of them were sleeping outside. Younglings.

Mara was just going to finally let herself pass out, but Luke’s voice intervened in a whisper. “Water?”

Mara cracked open one eye. She couldn't see anything but his outline in the dark of the room. “Don't mother me,” she muttered. “Not that drunk.”

He chuckled softly. “Had fun?”

She rolled away from him with an exasperated groan into her pillow. “Stop mothering me.”

He laughed again. It sounded like he was covering his mouth to muffle the sound. “I’m not. I’m jealous. You all looked like you were having much more fun than the Masters. We were talking about sallet cultivation.” 

She snorted. “While we were…” she lost the words and dug around in her head for a while before settling for, “irresponsible and embar--embarsing." She frowned. That didn't sound right. Oh well. "Didn’t even clean up.”

His voice went slightly strained. “Teenagers.” There was a brief silence, she sensed he was doing something with the Force, something subtle, but no surprise, she lacked the concentration to figure out what. She gave up.

“Guess this is...my adole-adolscence….delay, delayed adole--.” She gave up there too and yawned. “Yeah. Fun.”

The amused tone was back. “Do I get to say I told you so?”

Mara rolled to her back to face him. Where she thought he was anyway. She didn't know what he meant, but could still lift up her hand to wag a finger at him. “Not very mature.”

He let out a breath and his tone went even more strained. “I don’t want to be mature.”

A giggle escaped her _for no good reason_ , and she covered her face. She’d somehow crossed over to _that_ drunk. Ugh. 

“Tomorrow we go back,” he said in that tight voice. It weirdly made her think of disarming a bomb, fiddling among wires hoping you got the right one. “You’ll be busy?”

She pulled her hand down from her face and squinted at him. “’M always busy.”

“I mean.” A careful pause later and his voice dropped conspiratorially low. “During off hours.”

She looked at his form for a moment, started to shake her head. "Don't have off --" A lightning strike of understanding. “Oh! For se--”

His hand covered her mouth with a sharp, “Shh!” It took her a moment to realize he was laughing quietly. 

Mara closed her eyes, cringing as she pulled away. He lowered his head and his hair tickled a little at her temple while he whispered, “There’s a couple of apprentices sleeping across from you.” 

His breath by her ear felt funny. She really needed to sober up. 

“I really need to sober up,” she announced, shifting away onto her side with a vague wave in his direction. “Talk later. G’night.”

\--

Mara woke up with a mild headache to the temple bells.

“You left,” Mia noted as she walked over to where the apprentices lined up to go to the refreshers. There was a vaguely accusing undertone to it.

“I wasn’t about to sleep on the ground. It's not that fun when you're my age. Plus,” she added catching a distant memory. “Anse’leya left too.” She looked around. “Where is she by the way?”

Sula’s laugh rang out somewhere behind it. “Baeyu kept making eyes at her all night.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Mia turned, outraged, “Anse’leya has an understanding with Omac’hos. She wouldn’t.”

There was a chorus of assents.

Sula hissed at all of them, “I was only joking.”

“An understanding?” Mara whispered to Mia.

The apprentice nodded. “Omac’hos has duties elsewhere, once he settles them, he’ll move into the temple to join her.”

“What will he do here?”

“Be her lifemate,” she said as if it were obvious. She snickered. “Get loudly reprimanded by Master Skiesk for touching her lekku in public.”

Mara's eyes widened, from what she knew that could constitute something like a grope in Twi'lek culture. There was some confirmation of this when Frevar made a gasping noise from the other side of the room. “He did not!”

“He did!” Mia shot back. “It’s a wonder Master Skiesk didn’t Force blast him out of Sha Kalan right there.”

Mara bit back a laugh remembering Omac’hos’ more casual approach to the temple. She'd just thought he and Anse'leya's ties were more platonic. It was hard to tell with the Zeison Sha.

There was an assortment of guffaws, alongside by a clear stream of amusement through the Force that changed to dismay once Anse’leya appeared at the doorway. The room immediately quieted.

“Well don’t let me stop you from speculating.” She narrowed her eyes at them. “Off to the 'freshers all of you.”

As Mara went past she noticed the Twi’lek looked exhausted, far more than normal for the night of festivities, even her lekku dangling limp. There was also something muted in her sense. Mara waited for the apprentices to go on ahead, walking alongside her.

“Did you enjoy the evening?” Anse’leya asked.

Mara nodded and smiled. “Different. Like everything you do here." She paused. "Eksa is disgusting. Truly.” 

Anse’leya laughed. "Don't tell the apprentices."

“I’m guessing you had fun too,” Mara continued. “You seem tired.”

Her smile faded. “Master Skiesk sometimes has...episodes at night. He had a particularly difficult one last night.”

Mara’s head snapped in her direction, the change of mood jarring her. For a second, she didn’t know what to say.

“He’s ill,” Anse’leya admitted. “The trip south took too much out of him. Short as it was." 

“I’m sorry.” Frighteningly predictable words, Mara knew. Sometimes form was not a comfort at all.

But Anse’leya nodded dully, accepting. “It is the way of things. We don't know if next season...” her voice trailed off.

“What will you do?” Mara chastised herself immediately. What kind of question was that?

Anse’leya’s eyes were bright, Force presence laden with the same feeling she'd glimpsed at Sha Uyal. Sorrow, Mara realized. 

“Grieve,” Anse'leya drew a breath. “Pain is unavoidable, is it not? We discipline it like everything else.”

Mara thought about old lessons -- don’t fight it, breathe into it, manage it. It had just never occurred to her that this too could apply elsewhere.

Anse’leya looked over to her and repeated the same distinction she’d made with Frevar. “Pain is not suffering. My Master has always said that willingness to undergo the former while rejecting the latter defines our capacity for service.” She smiled that sad smile and pulled herself together. “Come now, the apprentices are way ahead of us.”

\--

The temple was full still with guests who had decided to stay the night after the gathering, the Sha Kae and Sha Kayal warriors clustering in their own tables as the apprentices all filed into breakfast after the temple-wide meditation.

Mara had calculated that telling Kla the day before would mean the knowledge of her and Luke’s departure spreading to the entire group of apprentices. She was proven correct by their exhaustingly single minded attention on her. They wanted to know where she would go next (she had no idea, her boss would let her know where she’d be needed), what ship would she fly out in (a skipray blastboat, and later an Action VI transport), what Jedi Skywalker would do (help her boss if he felt like it), how her training would continue (in the same pattern as before, training while working). While normally, all the questions would be too much, so close to her departure, she took them with good grace. With a smile she added some of her own asking what would happen now that the crisis in the south was under control.

“I wonder if Leir and Tadu finally decided whether they were going to do their life ceremony here or Sha Uyal,” Anse’leya mused.

“Has to be here!” Viya said emphatically. “Tadu is not even from Sha Uyal.”

“They should do it at Sha Uyal,” Bimsha countered.

“After what happened last time?” Kla laughed loudly.

“ _Especially_ after what happened last time,” Bimsha’s lipless mouth broke into a grin.

“What happened last time?” Mara asked.

“A group of these woyu salamanders snuck out to the markets and made a ruckus.” Pa’ya waved a hand to the younger apprentices.

“It was Eevo’s fault!” Mia chortled. “Buying sparkercrackers and not knowing how to use them.”

Mara didn’t know how to read Rodian expressions too well, but she thought he looked sheepish. “We just wanted to make the ceremony more...fun. Besides, it was Elas’ idea and Juryn helped.”

“Was not!” Elas shot from the other side of the table, Juryn protesting at his heels.

“I don’t know if I would call it fun,” Anse’leya said. “They almost set the whole village on fire.”

Mara chuckled. “How much 'fresher duty?”

“For that kind of infraction?” Anse’leya grinned. “What was the punishment, Elas?”

He sighed. “Solitary refresher duty. Solitary kitchen duty. And one of the guest rooms for a month. It was awful. I felt like I had _preta_.”

Mara looked at him, sending off her confusion.

“The pox,” he clarified.

Mara smiled, recalling Master Kiandra’s words.

The bells tolled signaling the end of breakfast and she realized that in all the conversation she hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t felt Luke come in. She looked over at the Master’s table, surprised to find it empty.

“They must be having their final meeting,” Anse’leya murmured, but before she could give it too much thought, Elas stood from his seat and started tapping his spoon on his glass. The conversation in the room stopped and he started speaking in his dialect.

Mara followed through the sense of his words, his respect towards all those gathered, his kin, and --

Beside her, Viya started interpreting, “--Jedi guests. Jedi Skywalker has come to learn from our Masters and offered us an opportunity to learn from his apprentice.”

Mara blinked, caught _completely_ off guard. She looked at Anse’leya uncomprehendingly, but she only smiled. Even thinking to the original assumption that she would teach Anse'leya the basics of unarmed combat, it was too little to merit this kind of recognition.

“With gratitude we offer Mara Jade something to remember us by,” Viya continued her interpreting. From the far side of the table Sula pulled up a wooden box that was passed down apprentice to apprentice until it reached her. 

Mara looked down, too dumbstruck to do much but gaze at it for several seconds. Slowly she brought her hands to it. 

“Thank you,” she said through dry lips. Finding her footing, she grasped the box firmly and stood. “Thank you.” She pulled the Force under her words. “What I have learned from you is more than enough, but this will serve as a reminder of your generosity and care during my time here.”

Applause sounded and she ducked her head, regard from the Zeison Sha's gifted washing over her, choking her up as she sat back down.

Viya leaned over and whispered loudly, “It’s a discblade.”

“Viya!” Bimsha’s eyes were wide. “Don’t spoil the surprise.”

“What surprise?” Elas interjected. “It was obvious.”

“Obvious or not.” Mara opened the box, lifting the discblade up with the Force. It was smaller than the ones she’d worked with during her time at the temple and...shinier. She smiled twirling it a little in the air. “It’s beautiful.” 

Mia snorted. “Discblades are not beautiful.”

“They are,” Mara retorted with a laugh. “You’re just too young to appreciate a good blade.”

Mia shook her head at her. Jasha wandered over and after greeting Mara, began leading the apprentices out, leaving Mara alone with Anse'leya at the table.

Mara turned to Anse’leya, lowering her voice. “I’ve taught you so little,” she said self consciously. “A week is really--”

“Mara,” Anse’leya interrupted gently. “Not doing. Doing is just the means.”

She fell silent. “Not what we can do, but what we can feel,” she said after a moment.

Anse’leya nodded. 

“I know what I feel...I’ve felt...welcomed, but you? What have we,” Mara broke off. “What have I given you?”

Anse’leya smiled. “A way to think otherwise. About Jedi.”

Mara looked at her skeptically. 

“We are kin, like voorcats are to manka cats.”

Mara couldn’t help but break into a grin. It wasn’t a bad analogy. She’d tell Luke about it later.

“Our ways are different, our expressions are different,” Anse’leya continued. “But we both understand what it means to keep the gift. As long as this remains, there will always be common ground between Jedi and Zeison Sha, no matter what disagreements there might have been.” Her eyes swept over the departing apprentices. “What will old histories be in light of memories of the Jedi who saved Sha Kae?"

Mara had to point out, "But that was just him, I didn't do--"

"Doing is just the means," Anse'leya repeated, bringing a hand to her arm. "It matters, but it is not everything."

Mara puzzled it out. "I'm not used to how I feel mattering one way or another..."

"Then it is well worth getting accustomed to." Her voice became gravely serious. "Protect your capacity to feel, Jedi apprentice, your connection to all things. That is the true source of strength. Not the might of your arm, nor the keenness of your intellect. Those are merely tools."

Mara met her eyes. "Is there hope for the Zeison Sha looking past Yanibar?"

Anse'leya sighed. "Perhaps...who knows if in the future some of us will feel the call as Jedi do, to the stars and beyond."

Mara considered her words for a few beats. "They will need guidance," she ventured. "The galaxy is not-- it's not like Yanibar. There are worse things than storms and voorcat attacks."

Anse'leya ducked her head, understanding the meaning in her words, a wave of gratitude flowing from her. "We'll know where to send them."

Mara nodded. "We will be waiting."

It was in high spirits that Mara went to pack the discblade and get her things as she waited for Luke to be done with his final meeting with the Masters’ Council. She didn’t have to wait for much longer. It seemed like the whole temple had come to see them off, a few curious guests off to the side. The Masters stood between the apprentices, even Master Skiesk who leaned heavily on Anse'leya, along with Bem'zule, Murin, Yvet, and the other temple workers. Mara went to thank them individually, ending with a big jar of somi paste from Murin to the looks of distaste from the apprentices.

Luke waited, hitching his own packed bag to her bike. As Mara turned from the temple workers, one look at his face, entirely too composed, accompanied by the dimmed sense of his Force presence told her something was wrong, but she couldn’t address it now. She was too overwhelmed by the intensity of feeling surrounding her.

It seemed like Luke had already made his own good-byes, but he bowed low and closed his eyes, gratitude flowing from him to the gathered crowd. “Thank you, we won’t soon forget the Zeison Sha’s hospitality.”

Mara repeated the gesture, pouring out her own gratitude, her fondness for the apprentices. 

They cried out something in their dialect. 

"The Force be with you both," Master Skiesk interpreted. 

"You as well." Luke turned to her. “Ready? I’ve made arrangements for the bike to get picked up.”

She nodded. That made things simpler. “Yeah.” She was going to lower her goggles when Mia rushed to her to the scolding cries of Anse’leya and the Masters. 

There was an odd urgency to her sense as she stopped before them. “You’ll be back, right?” Catching herself, she corrected, “Jedi will be back, right?”

Mara looked over at Luke, who smiled faintly and nodded. “Of course.”

Mia beamed, relief flowing from her. “You have to. You’re kin. Don’t forget us.” 

“We won’t,” Mara assured her. 

Mia nodded and rejoined the crowd, Kla wrapping an arm around her shoulders while Elas scolded her. Mara’s chest tightened as she pulled her headscarf up and her goggles down, climbing on the bike. Luke climbed on behind her, his sense more opaque than she’d ever felt it. Even though he sat behind her, his arms around her waist, he felt lightyears away. She punched the ignition switch, lifting up, raised an arm in one last good-bye before hitting the thrusters and sending them off, whizzing into the wind.

Back at the spaceport, Mara went through the usual procedures of leaving the planet. Unbeknownst to them, the temple had covered all the damages to the bike, leaving only paperwork to put through, and they returned to the skipray quicker than Mara had expected, Luke strangely reticent all the while. 

Maybe it was the shift. She felt out of sorts too. There was silence now where there had been chatter all around her, the constant feeling of Force presences. She wouldn’t have thought it would make a difference, but it did. How had she become used to something so fast? It'd just been a week.

“Want to take us up?” she asked Luke as she went through the preflight checklist. Maybe some of that would feel normal to him.

He shook his head. “That’s okay. I think I’m just going to the hold to meditate.”

 _That_ was out of the ordinary. Her eyes darted towards him. “Are you ok?”

There was a flicker in his Force presence. “I’ll be fine.” He stayed quiet as she took them out of the spaceport, past Yanibar’s atmosphere and into space. Once there, he undid his crash webbing and went towards the back of the ship.

Mara looked out the viewport where she thought she could see the _Wild Karrde_ in the distance. She sent over their IDs, coordinates, and an estimate of their arrival. She sat to wait.

Luke had said he’d be fine, not that he was fine. Mara frowned. Impulsively, she keyed in the the autopilot and undid her own crash webbing. 

Since they were using the skipray as a personal transport the cargo holds were empty. Luke sat cross-legged off to the side, eyes closed.

For a long time, Mara simply stood in the empty hold. She wouldn’t want to be poked and prodded, but it was unsettling to have someone else’s unease weigh on her this much. She finally went over and sat beside him, not really knowing what to say. 

“They gave me a gift during breakfast,” she blurted out. “The apprentices.”

“What was it?” Luke asked without opening his eyes.

“A discblade.”

His eyes opened and he smiled at her, but it didn’t reach it eyes. “You earned it.”

She shrugged. “A week is not really long enough to learn anything that well, but that means I can practice.” She shifted awkwardly. 

“I...liked it there,” she confessed, her words filling this frighteningly empty space between them where his sense should be. He'd shielded before, but not like this. “More than I expected to. I thought about the meditation like you asked me to, and I guess it was just feeling a part of something. I know what it means to work for something, for someone, to believe something. But with the Zeison Sha it’s deeper, by just being there and chanting the same syllables together in that moment...I could feel that I was _like them_ in some way. Through the Force. And I...I had never felt like that before. To be part of a group like that, to _want_ to be part of a group like that. I’m--I'm glad you took me with you. Thank you.” 

That terrible silence draped between them again as her words faded.

She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

Luke stayed quiet, closed his eyes again.

“I know that if it were me I wouldn’t want to be bothered, but I don’t think you’re like me. Not in this way and--” She grimaced at the way she failed to make sense. He must think she was a moron. This felt important though, and she pushed through. 

“Whatever it is,” she rambled on. “It feels...like maybe you shouldn’t...keep it.” Mara chewed on the inside of her cheek. “So if you decide not to...,” she finished with the grace of a bantha cub on shaky legs, and decided to put herself out of her misery and go back to the cockpit. 

She took two steps before she heard his voice behind her, almost soft enough to miss.

“They said I would turn.”

Her reply was automatic. “That’s ridiculous.” She whirled and strode over, plunking down beside him. He hadn’t moved from his seated position. “Who? Who said?” she demanded.

His voice was still soft. “The Master’s Council. All of them in agreement.”

“No.” She pressed her lips into a stubborn line. “You’ve said the future is unwritten more times than I can count. They’re wrong.”

He doesn’t respond to her remark. “That my arrogance would lead me to the dark.”

Mara shook her head, unable to see past the sheer impossibility of it. Unthinkable. “No. The Emperor couldn’t see his own death. Neither could C’baoth. The future is not something that can be seen. We both know this.” 

“Nothing is written in stone.” She brought up her hand to just over his elbow and squeezed his arm hard, wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, to wake him from that absurdity. “Nothing.”

When Luke opened his eyes, they were haunted. “That means anything is open. Even that future.”

“ _No_.” Mara shook her head firmly. “No. Not that. Never. We _both_ know it. They’ve been wrong about us. They’re wrong again. It’s that same Jedi prejudice--”

“They didn't say it to hurt me." There was a slight sharpness in it, certainty, before it crumbled. "It was a--a warning and I...I don’t know.” The admission seemed forced out of him. “I’ve--I--Sometimes I see...shadows. Distant.” He swallowed. “But there. I thought it was just...bad memories.” He shook his head again. “Something...in the horizon. They’ve seen it too.” She’d never seen him like this.

Mara thought of the dark skies from the dust storm. “Okay,” she conceded softly after a moment. “But that just means something is coming.” She hesitated and made herself adopt a light tone. “It was bound to happen, right? There’s always...something." She forced a tepid laugh. "Comes with the territory.”

Her words didn't seem to make a dent. His eyes were still cloudy with self-doubt. He seemed so far from her.

She tried something else. "It’s just a matter of preparation."

His Force sense was so unnaturally _blank_. It'd never been that blank before.

“And it's not something you have to deal with by yourself anymore, Luke.”

His head shot up. 

There. She went on gently, “I’m your apprentice. That’s what training has been for, hasn’t it? Anything that comes at you we’ll face together. _I_ can promise you that this time.”

No more had she uttered the words than the old inadequacy bubbled in her throat because she’d always hated asking for things, hated admitting that she was wanting, fundamentally useless, but she pushed past that feeling too. 

“I just...I need to be strong enough.” Mara squeezed his arm again. “Help me be strong enough...and whatever comes we can face together. No matter what.”

For a beat he simply stared at her, the next thing she knew the air left her in a wheeze as he pulled her into a crushing embrace. His feelings whipped around her like a violent gale, the doubt, the fear in them chilling. He'd stopped shielding, she realized.

For a second, her resolve wilted. If this was something _he_ feared, what hope did she have? Her instinct was to recoil in terror, a part of her screaming, _This is not my fight, it can’t be. There’s not enough of me left_. 

Mara closed her eyes and reached for that quiet spot within her. Her center of calm had always been a much thinner, brittle thing than his. 

Even so, she set her jaw as he clung to her, struggling against the impulse to pull away. She could, she could give it all up; she no longer had any debts. 

But she had no true place either, the distinct pieces of her floating haphazardly where once they’d had one direction, a single purpose. She would never have that kind of simplicity again, but she could have meaning. She could be part of something else larger than her, larger than her individual loyalties, something _necessary_.

She just had to put herself down for it come what may.

Mara pulled her calm over them like a blanket. It was what she had and it was _hers_. So she just stood there, thinking of the universe outside the ship, the voids, patches of nothingness between the filaments that held the galaxy together. Even in those voids, there were stars. Dim, and small as they might be, you could still guide your path by them if you needed to.

If there was nothing else.

That would have to be enough. Mara shut her eyes tight, keeping herself rooted to the spot by force of will. All she could do was draw from deep, to push back with her own faith as a bulwark, even as Luke held on to her so tightly she was choking, close to suffocating in all of his uncertainties, in his fears...all the ways his hopes could end in doom, for him, for everyone he cared about, for the galaxy as a whole. In the face of that, she would have to be enough.

Mara had a dim sense of the space of the cargo hold around them, could feel the vibrating durasteel under her boots, hear the whir of the engines moving them forward to an unknown future, dark clouds gathering in the distance. If she wanted to be more than just an apprentice, there was only one course of action. She curled a hand into a fist beside her. 

She would _make_ herself enough.

  
  


end.


End file.
